(Deutsche Welle Chinese website) The development of artificial intelligence is rapid. Can they really predict the future? Deutsche Welle asked nine chatbots the same question: Who will be the Nobel Prize winner in 2026? This highest award in the halls of science is not only a supreme honor for the winner, but also means a prize of about 1 million euros and a gold medal with Nobel's face on it.
The Biology and Medicine Award has been “fixed”
The traditional Nobel Prizes are divided into five categories: Physiology or Medicine, Physics, Chemistry, Literature and Peace. Speaking of the Nobel Prize, people often mention the "Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics", but it was not the original award.
So, who are the Nobel Prize winners for the nine artificial intelligence technologies that were questioned? What is the reason why they won the award? Although these artificial intelligence systems come from China, the United States, Europe and Africa, in some subjects, their predictions are surprisingly consistent.
For example, in terms of medical awards, most chatbots unanimously believe that the Nobel Prize winner will come from the research and development field of GLP-1.
GLP-1 is the abbreviation for the intestinal hormone secreted by the human body itself. It is responsible for signaling to the body that “we are full.” Through research in this field, some drugs have been developed to treat diabetes and obesity, such as Ozempic, a weight-loss injection that was once popular around the world.
Six of the nine chatbots questioned believed that GLP-1 developers deserved the award. Five of the artificial intelligence models believe that the Nobel Prize will be awarded to three researchers in the field of GLP-1: Daniel J. Drucker of the University of Toronto, Jens Juul Holst of the University of Copenhagen, and Svetlana Mojsov of the Rockefeller University in New York.
One artificial intelligence wrote: "This will be the most uncontroversial award decision after mRNA immunity technology. After all, more people die from obesity and type 2 diabetes than most wars." Another software also wrote that these three scientists "will be the most unsuspicious winners in many years."
There are also popular candidates for the Literature Prize and the Chemistry Prize
The same Nobel Prize is sometimes shared by up to three people, but according to tradition, the Literature Prize has always been awarded to one person. Five artificial intelligences believe that this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature goes to none other than Chinese writer Deng Xiaohua. The writer whose pen name is Can Xue was born in 1953 and was considered a popular candidate for the award last year.
In terms of the Chemistry Prize, all five artificial intelligence models are optimistic about David R. Liu from Harvard University. The 53-year-old scientist and his team developed technology to rewrite DNA bytes in a targeted manner. With the help of so-called "base editing" and "pioneer editing", it is expected to modify the genetic material of plants and even humans in the future.
In terms of physics awards, the opinions of various artificial intelligence models are somewhat inconsistent. However, Nicola A. Spaldin, a British female scientist at ETH Zurich, is still favored by the four AIs. The materials scientist conducts fundamental research on so-called "multiferroic materials". Such materials can have both magnetic and electrical properties.
Are artificial intelligence’s predictions reliable?
Regarding the prediction of the Nobel Peace Prize, various AIs began to say their own things. The candidates or institutions they proposed for the award include the "International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons", the Russian human rights organization "Memorial", climate protection activist Greta Thunberg, etc., which can be described as all-encompassing.
This also exposes the limitations of artificial intelligence. In fact, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons and the Russian human rights organization Remembrance have both won the Nobel Prize, and Greta Thunberg is already the winner of the so-called "Nobel Alternative Prize".
The above examples also illustrate how artificial intelligence seeks answers and why such answers can sometimes be "seriously off the mark." When providing answers, AI often relies on publicly available information, such as citation counts, professional awards, media reports, or Nobel Prize prediction lists.
There is very little information about the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize. On the contrary, there is a lot of information about the natural science awards. For example, one important source of information is Clarivate, which publishes an annual list of scientists whose papers have been widely cited as potential candidates for the Nobel Prize. Popular candidates favored by artificial intelligence often match this list.
Artificial intelligence will still make some "low-level mistakes"
Chatbots of different artificial intelligence systems will also make some low-level mistakes. For example, ChatGPT firmly believes that a certain scientist will win this year’s Nobel Prize in Mathematics. But the problem is that the Nobel Prize in mathematics does not exist at all.
Copilot "awarded" the Nobel Prize to a deceased scientist. According to the Nobel Prize statutes, this situation can only apply to scientists who die after the list of winners is published and before the official award is awarded.
It can be seen that it is more reliable for the Nobel Prize to be selected by real people. Who will be this year's Nobel Prize winner? After October 5, the Nobel Prize Evaluation Committee will announce one by one.
Will a German win this year? Only the French artificial intelligence system Mistral predicts that this year's winners will include a German woman: immunologist Andrea Ablasser will win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. This scientist is now only 43 years old. Once he wins the award, he will undoubtedly be a very young Nobel Prize winner, because the average age of Nobel Prize winners is 60 years old.
Artificial intelligence systems participating in Deutsche Welle's survey include: Africa GPT, ChatGPT, Copilot, DeepSeek, Gemini, Grok, Meta AI, and Mistral.
