Why Barto and Sutton Won the 2024 Turing Award: The Rise of Reinforcement Learning

2024 ACM A.M. Turing Award Announced

The ACM announced that Andrew Barto and Richard Sutton received the 2024 ACM A.M. Turing Award for their pioneering work in reinforcement learning.

Impact of Reinforcement Learning

Since the 1980s, Barto and Sutton introduced the core concepts, built the mathematical foundations, and created key algorithms that underpin modern intelligent systems.

Remarks from ACM Chair

Yannis Ioannidis highlighted the multidisciplinary impact of their work, noting its influence on AI progress and understanding of the brain, and emphasized that reinforcement learning continues to evolve.

Comments from Google

Jeff Dean quoted Alan Turing’s vision of a machine that learns from experience, stating that Barto and Sutton’s reinforcement learning directly answers that question and remains a core pillar of AI.

About the Laureates

Andrew Barto

Professor Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Barto earned a B.Sc. in mathematics (1970) and a Ph.D. in computer and communication science (1975). He joined UMass Amherst in 1977, held various faculty positions, and co‑authored the seminal textbook “Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction,” cited over 75,000 times.

Richard Sutton

Professor of Computer Science at the University of Alberta, research scientist at Keen Technologies, and chief scientific advisor for AMII, Sutton earned a B.A. in psychology (1978) and M.Sc./Ph.D. in computer and information science from UMass Amherst. His contributions include temporal‑difference learning, policy‑gradient methods, and the Dyna architecture.

AI Safety Warning

Barto and Sutton warned that many AI companies release products without thorough testing, likening it to building a bridge and letting the public test it. They criticized the lack of safety measures and commercial motivations, echoing concerns raised by AI pioneers such as Yoshua Bengio, Geoffrey Hinton, and Sam Altman.