{"id":23266,"date":"2025-03-05T09:03:26","date_gmt":"2025-03-05T10:03:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=23266"},"modified":"2025-03-05T10:27:42","modified_gmt":"2025-03-05T10:27:42","slug":"turing-award-goes-to-a-i-pioneers-andrew-barto-and-richard-sutton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=23266","title":{"rendered":"Turing Award Goes to A.I. Pioneers Andrew Barto and Richard Sutton"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Andrew Barto and Richard Sutton developed reinforcement learning, a technique vital to chatbots like ChatGPT.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

In 1977, Andrew Barto, as a researcher at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, began exploring a new theory that neurons behaved like hedonists<\/a>. The basic idea was that the human brain was driven by billions of nerve cells that were each trying to maximize pleasure and minimize pain.<\/p>\n

A year later, he was joined by another young researcher, Richard Sutton. Together, they worked to explain human intelligence using this simple concept and applied it to artificial intelligence. The result was \u201creinforcement learning,\u201d a way for A.I. systems to learn from the digital equivalent of pleasure and pain.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, the Association for Computing Machinery, the world\u2019s largest society of computing professionals, announced that Dr. Barto and Dr. Sutton had won this year\u2019s Turing Award for their work on reinforcement learning. The Turing Award, which was introduced in 1966, is often called the Nobel Prize of computing. The two scientists will share the $1 million prize that comes with the award.<\/p>\n

Over the past decade, reinforcement learning has played a vital role in the rise of artificial intelligence, including breakthrough technologies such as Google\u2019s AlphaGo<\/a> and OpenAI\u2019s ChatGPT<\/a>. The techniques that powered these systems were rooted in the work of Dr. Barto and Dr. Sutton.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\n
\n

\u201cThey are the undisputed pioneers of reinforcement learning,\u201d said Oren Etzioni, a professor emeritus of computer science at the University of Washington and founding chief executive of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence. \u201cThey generated the key ideas \u2014 and they wrote the book on the subject.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their book, \u201cReinforcement Learning: An Introduction,\u201d which was published in 1998, remains the definitive exploration of an idea that many experts say is only beginning to realize its potential.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.<\/p>\n

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into<\/a>\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe<\/a>\u00a0for all of The Times.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.<\/p>\n

Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Andrew Barto and Richard Sutton developed reinforcement learning, a technique vital to chatbots like ChatGPT.In 1977, Andrew Barto, as a researcher at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, began exploring a new theory that neurons behaved like hedonists. The basic idea was that the human brain was driven by billions of nerve cells that were each trying to maximize pleasure and minimize pain.A year later, he was joined by another young researcher, Richard Sutton. Together, they worked to explain human intelligence using this simple concept and applied it to artificial intelligence. The result was \u201creinforcement learning,\u201d a way for A.I. systems to learn from the digital equivalent of pleasure and pain.On Wednesday, the Association for Computing Machinery, the world\u2019s largest society of computing professionals, announced that Dr. Barto and Dr. Sutton had won this year\u2019s Turing Award for their work on reinforcement learning. The Turing Award, which was introduced in 1966, is often called the Nobel Prize of computing. The two scientists will share the $1 million prize that comes with the award.Over the past decade, reinforcement learning has played a vital role in the rise of artificial intelligence, including breakthrough technologies such as Google\u2019s AlphaGo and OpenAI\u2019s ChatGPT. The techniques that powered these systems were rooted in the work of Dr. Barto and Dr. Sutton.\u201cThey are the undisputed pioneers of reinforcement learning,\u201d said Oren Etzioni, a professor emeritus of computer science at the University of Washington and founding chief executive of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence. \u201cThey generated the key ideas \u2014 and they wrote the book on the subject.\u201dTheir book, \u201cReinforcement Learning: An Introduction,\u201d which was published in 1998, remains the definitive exploration of an idea that many experts say is only beginning to realize its potential.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23268,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23266"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23269,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23266\/revisions\/23269"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}