[620gelato]

> trying to jump on a "hot topic" bandwagon

I don't know exactly what they hope to gain by jumping on that bandwagon though; neither the physicists nor the computer scientists are going to value this at all. And dare I say, the general populace associated with the two fields isn't going to either - case in point, this hn post.

If there weren't any noble-worthy nominations for physics, maybe skip it? (Although that hasn't happened since 1972 across any field)

[soheil]

It could also be that CS is saturated with too many noble-worthy nominations so they had to spill some over to another field with vacant seats.

Another guess is maybe they're trying to divert some of the insane attention in CS/AI to physics to get more people to join that field.

But still really bizarre decision,

AI/ANN/CS != Physics

[klwant]

One possibility is that they think this will access hype funding. Put "AI" in a physics paper and watch the grants roll in.

[eigenket]

I kinda doubt it. The kind of people who end up nominating people for Nobels or even making the decisions on these aren't really struggling for grant funding.

[ImaCake]

But the system they have succeeded in optimises for people who can sell themselves well enough to get that funding. These people live and breathe selling themselves for funding. Every buzzword, sexy plot, and dynamic presentation has got them here and it's not like they plan to stop.

[pas]

There's no need to skip it, there's probably a big backlog from previous shortlists :)

But yeah, they could have passed. That would have been cool.

Also, there's a ton of extremely amazing shit in astronomy, or even photolithography, or simulations of physics (though that's basically what the chemistry prize was this year).