‘Probably Approximately Correct’ Inventor, From Harvard U., Wins Turing Award

March 9, 2011, 9:00 am

An artificial-intelligence pioneer has won the A.M Turing Award, the Association for Computing Machinery announced today. Leslie G. Valiant, a professor of computer science and applied mathematics at Harvard University, won $250,000 with the prestigious award, named after British mathematician Alan Turing. Mr. Valiant was cited for his work on computational learning theory, including a method called “Probably Approximately Correct,” which, despite its name, is an exacting way to analyze how a machine learns. He also contributed fundamental insights into parallel computing, which has become a standard way to increase machine calculation power, and ventured into neuroscience with a proposal for a mathematical model of the mind.

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citrita

I do not want to make a comment. I want to e-mail the item to a colleague. However, apparently one must make a comment before being able to e-mail the item–which is probably approximately NOT correct.
wittseek7

Valiant most definitely deserves this honor. However, it is a large exaggeration to suggest that he proposes a mathematical model of the entire mind. This is akin to saying that IBM will eventually launch a version of Watson capable of imagination and intuition. Dial back the rhetoric; Valiant is extraordinary without dramatic false hype.
old nassau’67

1. For once, Kudos to the administration of UJ, a university well-known for its race-relations a generation ago.
2. “’direct or indirect military implications’ to the relationship”: that criterion would apply to many – if not all – research universities. Examples: (from googling University name + Pentagon Research)
(a)Princeton researchers to lead major Pentagon-funded initiatives
(b)Pentagon Research Doubles at Harvard
and, not to be left out:
(c)The many uses of cybernetic rats /Pentagon wants paralysis-research rodents trained as tiny soldiers (State University of New York’s Downstate Medical Center).
Who knew?
benchgroup

Have they no shame? What a question! Of course they don’t. The only thing missing from the post-investigation acts of contrition in higher education is the sudden discovery of religion that political types resort to when lives of thuggery are interrupted by brain tumors and such (e.g., Lee Atwater). Now if Gordon Gee tweeted photos of himself in his undies, that would make things more interesting for the NCAA. Would it demonstrate lack of institutional control (only perhaps if the undies didn’t have the OSU mascot)?
uwstaff

“… honor the Ten Commandments.”

Really??
http://twitter.com/jvward John Ward

Prof. Vedder, your opening sentence (and the post’s headline) take a huge whack at intercollegiate athletics (or sports), yet every example you give is of ill behavior in one particular sport. If you know of any gross abuses in the gymnastics, cross country or water polo programs, please do tell us about them.

I like the idea of spinning football away from the university athletic department and making it a separately minor league team, affiliated with the school and using its facilities. Players can have the option of accepting free tuition, room & board and maybe a small stipend ($1500/month) in return for their services, or they can sign lucrative contracts (perhaps partially subsidized by professional teams?) to perform for a set number of years until they are eligible to go to the big leagues.

If that isn’t workable, then how about allowing every college football program to have a designated number of players — let’s start with 11 — who are allowed to be paid up to $100,000 per year and are exempt from any academic requirements. They would in essence be “ringers,” brought to the university to do nothing more than play football. Ironically enough, this would bring college football back to its formative years at the turn of the last century, when players from schools like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Penn would often be non-students backed financially by interested alums.
denadavis

Even more shameful than the examples you list was Gordon Gee’s jesting remark about being fired by the coach. I know it was supposed to be funny, but it cut way too close to the bone at a time when Gee should have been extolling the primacy of academics over athletics. He should have offered his resignation.
_perplexed_

The Forbes rankings are indeed bizarre…but they are Mr. Vedder’s rankings. Forbes has apparently not heard that public universities have lower tuition for state residents.
rwforce

I believe that Utah’s dismissing classes early on Friday was not motivated by getting students to the stadium, but by the second most important thing on campus: freeing up parking.
alan_kors

It is surreal (but not new) that when one mentions the name of a university (some exceptions aside), the first thing that most people think of is its football or basketball team, which is why, of course, the coaches make more than professors on the frontiers of, say, molecular genetics. “How is X University doing?” invites the answer, “It’s having an up and down season.” Most of those athletes are, directly or indirectly, either paid professionals or unpaid, exploited sources of revenue. (What a joy it would be, of course, to see one’s actual real students playing actual collegiate sports on the weekend.) This is as old, alas, as the early 20th century, but getting exponentially more absurd and detached from higher education. Combine that with soulless careerism, anti-intellectual administrators, dysfunctionally corporate structure, PC litmus tests, and the thought-reform racket, and the whole enterprise has moved beyond parody.
old nassau’67

1. No other country has an NCAA, because athletics and sports are handled by clubs or leagues that have no connection to universities. The spin-off suggestion, as Professor Vedder suggests, would move the whole mess off campuses.
2. In addition to the financial schemes and scams, which Profeesor Vedder amply details, is the academic crime of admitting athletes (a)whose GPA’s and SAT’s are far below the average freshman’s; (b) who enroll in special courses taught by special instructors; (c) who live in separate dorms, with separate gyms, tutors, cafeterias, even parking spaces. The scholarship athlete is to the average undergraduate as the Roman gladiators were to the Roman citizens.
3. In Georgia, I taught SAT Prep at two high schools, for 15 years. The SAT/GPA (on a 4 point scale) admissions standards, at UGA or GaTech, for athletes’ admittance were simple: All-Conference, up to 100 points/.5 GPA lower than average, ok; All-State: 200/1; All-American (McDonald’s, Parade, Army, ): 800 (Minimum NCAA); diploma.