
Google Lifts the Turing Award into Nobel Territory - gordon_freeman
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/13/google-lifts-the-turing-award-into-nobel-territory/?ref=technology
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mturmon
It'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
The 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
That'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
Yes but its also not Google's sole responsibility to endow this. It would be
great to see other companies follow Google's lead.

~~~
mturmon
The 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.

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kulkarnic
The 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.

~~~
sanderjd
I don't think that transformation has really happened in the public
imagination _at large_ , but perhaps it has in the bay area. Sure, the public
imagination is somewhat taken with some of technology's successful figures,
like Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg and Sergey Brin and Larry Page, but
successful business-people have always been admired, regardless of whether
their background is in finance or marketing or management or engineering or
programming.

~~~
j2kun
This is especially considering how every Turing award winner is recognized for
extremely technical contributions. There's no way the general public will
think of Richard Karp or Stephen Cook as a hero because they won't even be
able to say anything resembling what they did.

~~~
smeyer
Most Nobel prizes in physics are awarded for extremely technical work as well,
but people frequently find ways to distill some of it into something
understandable enough to make for good popular articles whenever the prizes
are announced.

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nopinsight
To 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.

~~~
hrasyid
Why would the British royalty be a 'one up' compared to the Swedish one? ;)

~~~
taejo
Elizabeth II is the queen of 16 countries. Carl XVI Gustav is king of one.

~~~
xorcist
He _is_ king of the one which gives out the Nobel Prize though. It's kind of
relevant, isn't it?

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tn13
I 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
> _Steve Jobs is a well known name but Denis Richie isn 't._

Oh, the irony.

~~~
zimpenfish
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.

Also had an easier name to spell.

~~~
sampo
> _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
Ah, my apologies, didn't occur to me.

~~~
jacquesm
Two spelling errors was a pretty good giveaway.

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nacs
Props 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
These awards are given to well-known people fairly late in their careers, by
design.

~~~
jeffreyrogers
Ken Thompson had already invented UNIX and C when Google hired him.

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NegativeK
Strange; I rarely think of the cash award with the Nobel prize.

~~~
duaneb
What do YOU imagine would push the turing award closer to the nobel prize?

~~~
mentat
A big hunk of gold so you can tell stories like:
[http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2014/10/10/...](http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2014/10/10/nobel-
prize-airport-security/)

~~~
kens
I was expecting the amazing story of Niels Bohr dissolving Nobel prize medals
in acid to hide them from the Nazis:
[http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2011/10/03/140815154/disso...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2011/10/03/140815154/dissolve-
my-nobel-prize-fast-a-true-story)

~~~
dllthomas
Me too, but I realize there are more things necessary to that story that we'd
really rather not introduce for the sake of the story...

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larrys
Compare 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
also bargain in attracting some of the best AI scientists to work on Search,
machine learning, [X], etc projects of its own.

~~~
duaneb
If this is a recruitment move, it's weak. It's more about the brand PR, I
suspect.

~~~
cloudwizard
Or just because someone felt like it. It is probably not enough money to waste
a lot time thinking about it.

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srcmap
If 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
If 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
Computer/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
Note 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.

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antirez
My 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
An odd set of areas for a prize for math.

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jacquesm
Does that mean you get it before you achieve something?

