John Hopfield, a professor at Princeton, is also an early pioneer in the field of AI. He developed the Hopfield network, a type of neural network that has transformed AI by demonstrating how neural networks can store and retrieve patterns. The Hopfield network mimics how the human memory works, showing how some of the principles of biology and physics can be applied to computational systems. This innovative work has paved the way for the development of more sophisticated AI models that can learn and adapt to new situations.