Two pioneering computer scientists win 2024 Turing Award For their work on strengthening learning, a subject that machines learn through reward-based trial and error so that they can adapt in a constrained or dynamic environment.
Andrew G. Bartoprofessor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Amherst; and Richard Suttona professor at the University of Alberta, has developed key algorithms and theories through a series of groundbreaking papers Since the 1980s. This includes work on reinforcement technology Time difference learning;The two later published an academic textbook called Reinforcement Learning: Introduction.
Revered mathematician Alan Turing (above), named the Turing Award, also published a paper in the 1950s Computers and intelligence This questioned whether computers could think and talk about similar concepts surrounding empirical learning.
In recent years, enhanced learning has attracted more attention after Google DeepMind built AI using this technology Defeat the best Alphago player in the world. In the past few months, China AI Upstart DeepSeek Become a headline for the game-changing R1 reasoning model, which tends to enhance learning to create more cost-effective underlying models.
“Nobel Prize in Computing”
The Turing Award, managed by the Association of Computers (ACM), is often referred to as the “Computer Award”. However, the Nobel Prize itself has been invading the field of computing, especially around AI. Jeff Hinton and John Hopfield Win the Nobel Prize in Physics They worked in basic AI last year. Following closely behind Deepmind’s Demis Hassabis and John Jumper Awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry For them Working on Alphafold.
“The research areas from cognitive science and psychology to neuroscience inspired the development of reinforcement learning, which laid the foundation for some of the most important advances in AI and gave us a deeper understanding of how the brain works.” In a press release. “The work of Barto and Sutton is not a stepping stone from which we are now moving forward. Reinforcement learning continues to grow and offers great potential for further computing and many other disciplines. It is appropriate for us to receive the most prestigious awards in our field.”
Other notable AI pioneers who won the Turing Award include Yann Lecun, Chief AI Scientist at MetaWorld Health Organization Awarded for the 2018 Award Working with Geoff Hinton and Yoshua Bengio on deep neural networks.
Barto and Sutton will share a $1 million cash reward and receive support from Google.
