How did a computer scientist such as Geoffrey Hinton manage...

[Older voice] "Mmm. What about Hinton, he's widely regarded? Nobody got fired for buying IBM"

In awarding prizes, the Nobel Committees often seem only marginally more competent than MTG is at explaining meteorology. And if they can give a literature prize for lyrics like:

You can have your cake and eat it too

Incredible 'black smokers' discovered in a part of the deep ocean where they should not exist - Earth.com

"Good idea, but how can we wangle something that says 'Physics'?"

[Younger voice] "But wait a minute, Ising-Lenz goes back to the 1920's. And didn't Hinton plagiarise rather a lot? He also didn't invent modern backprop, did he, that's Linnainmaa? And Amari preceded Hopfield, too. That's not a good look."

They then move on to selectively provide their own version of history. But hey, it’s OK. They wanted controversy, didn’t they? Whatever.

NASCAR Cup Series qualifying order for Michigan International Speedway - NASCAR.com

… then anything is possible. There’s no rule that a Nobel Prize has to make sense.^*

"Naah, Linnainmaa is a Finn. Can't give it to a bloody Finnish mathematician. Let's go for drinks. Brännvin anyone?"

"Good point, I'm sure we can swing it. And let's tack on Hopfield while we're about it."

China consumer prices slump again, deepening deflation worries as demand stays weak - CNBC

In December 1973, when Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, comedian Tom Lehrer dropped his mic and stamped on it—satire had just died.

"Hey guys, AI is pretty big so let's centre our prizes on it this year. We can get some attention, and it's all about advertising, at the end of the day, isn't it?"

^* Fibiger got the 1926 Medicine prize for the discovery of Spiroptera carcinoma (Don’t ask).

How is bestiality wrong, but killing animals for sport or trophies is considered okay?

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

[The basic structure of artificial neural networks] has close similarities with spin models in statistical physics applied to magnetism or alloy theory. This year’s Nobel Prize in Physics recognizes research exploiting this connection to make breakthrough methodological advances in the field of ANN.

"Where can we shoehorn it in? Chemistry is easy 'cos AlphaFold; but what about physics? A bit more challenging, right?"

Is there an MBTI personality that is more or less likely to handle stress?

"Didn't he do something with Boltzmann in it? That sounds physics-y. RBMs and stuff, eh?"

There you go.^†

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

Why does the God of the Bible condemn homosexual acts?

Fortunately, we are privy to the discussion that led up to this:

Whatever.

What should you do if a police officer comes to your house and asks for someone who doesn't live there anymore?

When he's standing, in front of you

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

A fly on the wall at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences