Andrew G. Barto and Richard S. Sutton have been named because the recipients of the 2024 ACM A.M. Turing Award for his or her contributions to the sector of reinforcement studying starting within the Nineteen Eighties.
Reinforcement studying is a coaching technique for AI techniques that teaches them find out how to take advantage of optimum selections by means of a sequence of alerts often known as rewards. ChatGPT, as an example, was educated utilizing a technique known as reinforcement studying from human suggestions (RLHF).
They wrote the textbook “Reinforcement Studying: An Introduction” in 1998, and it’s nonetheless a regular reference within the subject, having been cited over 75,000 occasions.
Barto and Sutton have been answerable for growing lots of the primary algorithmic approaches utilized in reinforcement studying, together with temporal distinction studying, policy-gradient strategies, and utilizing neural networks to signify realized features.
Their work has additionally led to discoveries within the neuroscience subject, particularly that sure reinforcement studying algorithms can clarify the dopamine system within the mind.
“Barto and Sutton’s work demonstrates the immense potential of making use of a multidisciplinary method to longstanding challenges in our subject,” mentioned Yannis Ioannidis, president of ACM. “Analysis areas starting from cognitive science and psychology to neuroscience impressed the event of reinforcement studying, which has laid the foundations for a number of the most necessary advances in AI and has given us higher perception into how the mind works. Barto and Sutton’s work is just not a stepping stone that we now have now moved on from. Reinforcement studying continues to develop and provides nice potential for additional advances in computing and plenty of different disciplines. It’s becoming that we’re honoring them with essentially the most prestigious award in our subject.”
Barto is Professor Emeritus of Data and Laptop Sciences on the College of Massachusetts Amherst, and Sutton is a Professor of Laptop Science on the College of Alberta, a Analysis Scientist at Eager Applied sciences, and a Fellow at Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute.
