AI’s ‘hedonistic’ machines earn Barto, Sutton top computer science prize

Teaching machines in the way that animal trainers mold the behaviour of dogs or horses has been an important method for developing artificial intelligence and one that was recognised Wednesday with the top computer science award.

Two pioneers in the field of reinforcement learning, Andrew Barto and Richard Sutton, are the winners of this year’s A M Turing Award, the tech world’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize.