How did a computer scientist such as Geoffrey Hinton manage to win a Nobel Prize in physics when computer science already has its own Nobel Prize equivalent in the Turing Awards?

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:

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

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

AMD Stock Soars as Piper Sandler Raises Price Target After 'Advancing AI' Event - Investopedia

You can have your cake and eat it too

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

There you go.^†

Do you think Christine Lagarde will be headed and will be heading for success in the next French presidential elections starting as soon as 2027?

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

Whatever.

^† They rationalise their decision thusly:

Who writes and reads novels nowadays?

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

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.

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

What is your review of X-Men '97 season 1?

My 11 million SEK, Dr Jo.

Why wait any longer for the one you love?

Whatever.

What would happen if the Soviet Union had simply annexed Manchuria after World War 2 or kept it independent as a puppet state allied them and separate from China as China was too weak too oppose it anyway?

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

When he's standing, in front of you

"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?"

Is The Last of Us Part 2 really as woke as people say it is?

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

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

[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.

Why was Nietzsche against essentialism?

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

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

(Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize for Literature, 2016)

How many of you have had your parental rights taken away because of lies and no truth whatsoever, and did you prove the lies that were told about you to be false either through drug testing or another way, but still had your rights taken?

[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."

(Mumbles of assent)

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

What's the hardest part about marriage that no one ever talks about?