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Google Lifts the Turing Award into Nobel Territory
- nacs 12y agoProps to Google for stepping up where Intel left off. Sounds like a good way for Google to find some big-name (post-award), PR-worthy, highly-qualified new employees.
- waterlesscloud 12y agoThese awards are given to well-known people fairly late in their careers, by design.
- jeffreyrogers 12y agoKen Thompson had already invented UNIX and C when Google hired him.
- larrys 12y agoCompare what this is costing google to what an advertisement on the Superbowl costs (much much more). Google will get a tremendous amount of valuable publicity for their $1,000,000 per year. It's a bargain regardless of anything else that will come out of doing this.
- gordon_freeman 12y agoalso bargain in attracting some of the best AI scientists to work on Search, machine learning, [X], etc projects of its own.
- duaneb 12y agoIf this is a recruitment move, it's weak. It's more about the brand PR, I suspect.
- cloudwizard 12y agoOr just because someone felt like it. It is probably not enough money to waste a lot time thinking about it.
- NegativeK 12y agoStrange; I rarely think of the cash award with the Nobel prize.
- duaneb 12y agoWhat do YOU imagine would push the turing award closer to the nobel prize?
- waterlesscloud 12y agoPrestige, which you can only partially buy.
- NegativeK 12y agoAbsolutely prestige. If one of the wealthiest people in the world won a Nobel prize, nobody would say "billionaire and $1M prize winner, et cetera".
- asdfologist 12y agoCall it a Nobel prize.
- Turing_Machine 12y agoWell, it worked for the economists, more or less. The "Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel" is almost invariably called the "Nobel Prize in Economics", even though it's a separate deal that didn't exist until 1969.
- mentat 12y agoA big hunk of gold so you can tell stories like: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2014/10/10/nobel-prize-airport-security/ http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2014/10/10/...
- nmcfarl 12y ago
- mturmon 12y agoIt's unclear from the article whether Google endowed the award to a sustainable level of $1M/year, or is just supporting it at that level for now. Clearly an endowment would make a stronger statement. There's a suggestion that it was not an endowment, because of the note that Intel stepped away from sponsorship.
- gwern 12y agoThe official press release doesn't mention anything about an endowment either: http://amturing.acm.org/prize-news.cfm http://amturing.acm.org/prize-news.cfm (In the current environment, to get interest of $1m a year would require a very large endowment - something like $30m+ - and you'd think that would be mentioned prominently.)
- jeffdavis 12y agoThat's not huge compared to their other contributions. Look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google.org http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google.org
- chipgap98 12y agoYes but its also not Google's sole responsibility to endow this. It would be great to see other companies follow Google's lead.
- mturmon 12y agoThe Nobel Prize was endowed by Alfred Nobel. I had not read the story and the summary is fully worth reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Nobel#Nobel_Prizes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Nobel#Nobel_Prizes The Economics Nobel was not one of the original prizes, but it too was endowed, by the Bank of Sweden. Apparently the Bank also gives an annual contribution, approximately equal to the prize amount ($1M), to administer the prize.
- gwern 12y agoBut did any of the others not mention the endowment or sum being donated...?
- kulkarnic 12y agoThe prize money is definitely a great idea. It'll probably be seen as a rich-company-PR move, but in hindsight, I think we'll see it as a sign of the times. Computer science seems to be going through a similar transformation as Palo Alto. Just as Palo Alto went from a place where people were modest about their wealth to one where vanity license-plates decorate Teslas at the curb-side, computer scientists seem to have transformed in public imagination from quiet nerds to celebrity saviors of mankind. I'm not sure the image is well-deserved, but so it goes.
- acabal 12y agoWell to be fair, even the Nobel prize is a sort of PR move, though a posthumous one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Nobel#Nobel_Prizes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Nobel#Nobel_Prizes
- vinceguidry 12y agoEverything large organizations and ultra-rich people do is PR.
- melling 12y agoEspecially the anonymous super rich. http://m.philanthropy.com/article/Donors-Increasingly-Make-Their/62759/ http://m.philanthropy.com/article/Donors-Increasingly-Make-T...
- jacquesm 12y agoDoes that mean you get it before you achieve something?
- tn13 12y agoI really wish we could come up with "community awards" where certain people with certain accomplishment could pool in their own money to honor a researcher who is otherwise not so much known in main stream media. For example Steve Jobs is a well known name but Denis Richie isn't.
- sampo 12y ago> Steve Jobs is a well known name but Denis Richie isn't. Oh, the irony.
- zimpenfish 12y agoNot really - Steve Jobs sold devices to hundreds of millions of people, helped spin off possibly -the- premium movie studio, and regularly appeared on stage in high profile events watched by millions. Also had an easier name to spell.
- sampo 12y ago> Not really - Steve Jobs sold devices to hundreds of millions of people, helped spin off possibly -the- premium movie studio, and regularly appeared on stage in high profile events watched by millions. I agree, but this was not my point. > Also had an easier name to spell. This was.
- zimpenfish 12y agoAh, my apologies, didn't occur to me.
- jacquesm 12y agoTwo spelling errors was a pretty good giveaway.
- Chinjut 12y agoFTFY: "Stephen Job"
- srcmap 12y agoIf I have google or Microsoft type money, I would setup Nobel price like $$$ for multiple developers who makes significant contributions to open source projects every year.
- fijal 12y agoIf google recognizes you as an open source contributor who does something significant, you get couple hundred $$$ worth of credit in their store (I wish I were joking)
- tonyplee 12y agoComputer/software industrial is big and rich enough to have our own Nobel type Award for significant contributors to the Art, Design and Science of Computer/Software. Good PR, karma, ego boost for everyone work in the fields. Like "Academy of motion picture arts and sciences" - "Academy of Computer Sciences, Software and Design" All winners get A Golden Keyboard and $1 million real cash. If I have choice, I would like to nominate: "Dennis Ritchie" - inventor of C language. "Bill Joy" inventor of gdb. "Guido van Rossum" inventor of Python "Brendan Eich" inventor of Javascript. "Linux" "AT&T System V" "BSD"
- ProblemFactory 12y agoNote that Dennis Ritchie already received the Turing award in 1983 for inventing and writing UNIX. In fact, more than half of the Turing awards are for practical inventions and software: work on programming languages and compilers, TCP/IP, operating systems, relational databases. And even many of awarded "theoretical" achievements had working software that demonstrated or automated the maths parts. I'm not arguing against an "Art and Design" award - but just noting that the Turing award is not that far off, it covers Computer Science contributions much more widely than just proving CS maths theorems.
- nopinsight 12y agoTo lift its prestige, it would be nice to have the Queen of the UK and the Commonwealth to hand out the award too. That'd be a one-up on the Nobel prize, which is handed out by the King of Sweden. Fittingly, Alan Turing was British (just as Alfred Nobel was Swedish). It would also serve as a vindication of Turing's honor.
- audeyisaacs 12y agoI don't think that would be appropriate for symbolic reasons related to his cause of death. In my opinion, the award carrying Turing's name gives it a level of prestige greater than what royalty could provide.
- hrasyid 12y agoWhy would the British royalty be a 'one up' compared to the Swedish one? ;)
- nl 12y agoThe Nobel prize is a Swedish (and Norwegian[1] award) so that makes sense. The Turing award is organized by the ACM, an US-based non-profit. It has nothing to do with the UK, apart from being named by someone who was a hero for that country and then was persecuted until he committed suicide. He was only pardoned in 2013. I think your idea is well intentioned but I'm not convinced it is appropriate. [1] The Nobel Peace Prize of awarded by a Norwegian committee: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Peace_Prize http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Peace_Prize
- 12y ago
- antirez 12y agoMy feeling is that the price should be split into two pieces: computer science and cryptography. However great to see the price raised to 1M.
- marcosdumay 12y agoAn odd set of areas for a prize for math.