- 2018 was for chirped pulse amplification, which is most commonly used in medicine (LASIK surgery for example)
- 2014 was for basically for LED lights
- 2010 was for a method for producing graphene
- 2009 was for both charge-coupled device, which is a component for digital imaging (including regular consumer digital cameras), and fibre-optic cables
The idea that academic disciplines are in any way isolated from each other is nonsense. Machine learning is computer science; it's also information theory; that means it's thermodynamics, which means it's physics. (Or, rather, it can be understood properly through all of these lenses).
John Hopfield himself has written about this; he views his work as physics because _it is performed from the viewpoint of a physicist_. Disciplines are subjective, not objective, phenomena.
I would prefer if there was an actual Nobel Prize for Mathematics (not sure if the Fields would become that, or a new prize created).