STOCKHOLM (AP) — Two artificial intelligence pioneers — John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton — won the Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday for their help in creating the building blocks of machine learning that will shape the way we work and live , revolutionized, but also creates new threats to humanity. said one of the winners.

Hinton, known as the godfather of artificial intelligence, is a Canadian and British citizen who works at the University of Toronto, and Hopfield is an American who works at Princeton.

“This year’s two Nobel Prize winners in physics have used tools from physics to develop methods that form the basis of today’s powerful machine learning,” the Nobel Committee said in a press release.

Ellen Moons, a member of the Nobel Committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, said the two laureates had “used fundamental concepts in statistical physics to design artificial neural networks that act as associative memories and find patterns in large data sets.”

She said such networks were used to advance research in physics and had “also become part of our daily lives, for example in facial recognition and language translation.”

While the committee acknowledged the science behind machine learning and AI, Moons also mentioned the downside: “While machine learning has enormous benefits, its rapid development has also raised concerns about our future.” Collectively, people bear the responsibility for this new technology to be used in a safe and ethical manner for the greatest possible benefit to humanity.”

Hinton shares these concerns. He quit a job at Google so he could speak more freely about the dangers of the technology he helped develop.

On Tuesday, he said he was shocked by the honor.

“I’m amazed. I had no idea this was going to happen,” he said when reached by the Nobel Committee on the phone.

Hinton predicted that AI will ultimately have a “huge impact” on civilization, bringing improvements in productivity and healthcare.

“It would be comparable to the Industrial Revolution,” he said in the open conference call with reporters and officials from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

“Instead of surpassing humans in physical strength, it will surpass humans in intellectual ability. We have no experience of what it’s like to have things smarter than us. And it will be wonderful in many ways,” Hinton said. “But we also have to worry about a range of possible dire consequences, particularly the risk of these things spiraling out of control.”

Six days of Nobel Prize announcements began Monday with Americans Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun winning the medicine prize for their discovery of tiny bits of genetic material that serve as on-off switches in cells, helping to control what the cells do and when they do it. If scientists better understand how they work and how to manipulate them, it could one day lead to effective treatments for diseases like cancer.

The physics prize carries a cash prize of 11 million Swedish kronor ($1 million) from a bequest from the prize’s creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel. Laureates are invited to receive their awards at ceremonies on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel’s death.

The Nobel Prize announcements continue with the Chemistry-Physics Prize on Wednesday and the Literature Prize on Thursday. The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday and the Economics Prize on October 14th.