Communications of the ACM

One hundred years after the birth of Alan Mathison Turing–often called “the father of computer science and artificial intelligence”–a growing list of countries has been fashioning celebrations to mark the centenary of his birth on June 23, 1912. Which makes it no mean feat to create an event that is unique–and also memorable.

But the ACM A.M. Turing Centenary Celebration on June 15 and 16 at San Francisco’s Palace Hotel was “unique and breathtaking,” according to Ed Lazowska who, along with approximately 1,050 other attendees, witnessed–for the first time–the gathering in one place of 33 of the 39 living ACM A.M. Turing Award laureates. 

“They were the two best days I’ve spent professionally in many years,” says Lazowska, who holds the Bill & Melinda Gates Chair in Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington. “Not only was it a treat to hear from so many Turing laureates, but the audience was a 'Who’s Who' of the field. The fact that all branches of computer science were represented made it far more stimulating than a normal narrowly focused symposium.”

The celebration’s schedule was arranged so “there were plenty of opportunities for attendees to meet face-to-face with the Turing laureates,” says Vinton Cerf, incoming ACM president and general chair of the conference. “Without exception, all of them were accessible and accommodating and were happy to talk to anyone who wanted to talk to them. There were lots of people getting autographs. And students had an opportunity to talk to people who had written their textbooks.”

“For me, one of the two most remarkable events was the panel on ‘Turing: The Man’  consisting of people who had met Turing or his mother and had stories to tell about their experiences,” says John White, ACM’s CEO. “The other was the talk–on ‘Lambda Calculus: Then And Now’–by Dana Scott who did his Ph.D. with Alonzo Church, the same person with whom Turing did his Ph.D. The way Dana and the other panelists tied the areas they worked in to the fundamental contributions of Turing was really amazing–and I learned a lot.”

But it turned out that close to 150 women were at the celebration and some were offended by Saffo’s remark.

“Saffo apologized,” recalls Cerf, “and took advantage of the opportunity to point out that discrimination exists not only against women but also minorities in computer science. And there needs to be a change because it is shortsighted for us not to take advantage of every brain available to solve some of the serious problems facing us as a society. Saffo made a beautiful, eloquent apology that was very impressive.”

Other high points of the program include:

o The formal award ceremony when Judea Pearl received the 2012 A.M. Turing Award for his work in artificial intelligence.

o Pioneer Alan Kay’s homage to Ivan Sutherland on the 50th anniversary of Sketchpad, Sutherland’s Ph.D. thesis which led to the first GUI. Kay recreated the Sketchpad display of the famous Sketchpad “truss bridge” demo.

o A hardware panel moderated by UC-Berkeley professor David Patterson in which Turing laureate Ivan Sutherland made an argument favoring asynchronous logic over synchronous.

See the Celebration Webcast.

Paul Hyman is a science and technology writer based in Great Neck, NY.