Judea Pearl Explained

Judea Pearl
Birth Date:4 September 1936
Birth Place:Tel Aviv, Mandatory Palestine
(present day Israel)
Nationality:Israeli
American
Alma Mater:Technion – Israel Institute of Technology
New Jersey Institute of Technology
Rutgers University
New York University Tandon School of Engineering
Thesis Title:Vortex Theory of Superconductive Memories
Thesis Url:https://www.proquest.com/openview/0da7bfb9207086e30e2e633b7ae3c907/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y
Thesis Year:1965
Doctoral Advisor:Leonard Strauss
Leonard Bergstein
Doctoral Students:Rina Dechter, Hector Geffner, Elias Bareinboim
Known For:Artificial Intelligence
Causality
Bayesian Networks
Website:http://bayes.cs.ucla.edu/jp_home.html
Children:3, including Daniel
Field:Computer science, statistics
Prizes:IJCAI Award for Research Excellence
Turing Award [1]
Rumelhart Prize
Harvey Prize
BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award [2]

Judea Pearl (born September 4, 1936) is an Israeli-American computer scientist and philosopher, best known for championing the probabilistic approach to artificial intelligence and the development of Bayesian networks (see the article on belief propagation). He is also credited for developing a theory of causal and counterfactual inference based on structural models (see article on causality). In 2011, the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) awarded Pearl with the Turing Award, the highest distinction in computer science, "for fundamental contributions to artificial intelligence through the development of a calculus for probabilistic and causal reasoning".[1] [3] [4] He is the author of several books, including the technical Causality: Models, Reasoning and Inference, and The Book of Why, a book on causality aimed at the general public.

Judea Pearl is the father of journalist Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped and murdered by terrorists in Pakistan connected with Al-Qaeda and the International Islamic Front in 2002 for his American and Jewish heritage.[5] [6]

Biography

Judea Pearl was born in Tel Aviv, British Mandate for Palestine, in 1936 to Polish Jewish immigrant parents.[7] He is a descendant of Menachem Mendel of Kotzk on his mother's side. After serving in the Israel Defense Forces and joining a kibbutz, Pearl decided to study engineering in 1956. He received a B.S. in electrical engineering from the Technion 1960. That same year, he emigrated to the United States and pursued graduate studies. He received an M.S. in electrical engineering from the Newark College of Engineering (now New Jersey Institute of Technology) in 1961, and went on to receive an M.S. in physics from Rutgers University and a PhD in electrical engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn (now the New York University Tandon School of Engineering) in 1965.[8] He worked at RCA Research Laboratories (now SRI International) in Princeton, New Jersey on superconductive parametric amplifiers and storage devices and at Electronic Memories, Inc., on advanced memory systems.[8] When semiconductors "wiped out" Pearl's work, as he later expressed it,[9] he joined UCLA's School of Engineering in 1970 and started work on probabilistic artificial intelligence. He is one of the founding editors of the Journal of Causal Inference.

Pearl is currently a professor of computer science and statistics and director of the Cognitive Systems Laboratory at UCLA. He and his wife, Ruth, had three children. In addition,, he is a member of the International Advisory Board of NGO Monitor.[10]

Former Israeli Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, partnered with Judea Pearl in the documentary With My Whole Broken Heart.[11]

Murder of Daniel Pearl

In 2002, his son, Daniel Pearl, a journalist working for the Wall Street Journal was kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan, leading Judea and the other members of the family and friends to create the Daniel Pearl Foundation.[12] On the seventh anniversary of Daniel's death, Judea wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal titled Daniel Pearl and the Normalization of Evil: When will our luminaries stop making excuses for terror?.[13]

Emeritus Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks quoted Judea Pearl's beliefs in a lesson on Judaism: "I asked Judea Pearl, father of the murdered journalist Daniel Pearl, why he was working for reconciliation between Jews and Muslims...he replied with heartbreaking lucidity, 'Hate killed my son. Therefore I am determined to fight hate.'"[14]

Views

On his religious views, Pearl states that he is a "practicing disbeliever."[15] [16] He is very connected to Jewish traditions such as holidays and kiddush on Friday night.[17]

Research

Judea Pearl is credited for "laying the foundations of modern artificial intelligence, so computer systems can process uncertainty and relate causes to effects."He is one of the pioneers of Bayesian networks and the probabilistic approach to artificial intelligence, and one of the first to mathematize causal modeling in the empirical sciences. His work is also intended as a high-level cognitive model. He is interested in the philosophy of science, knowledge representation, nonstandard logics, and learning. Pearl is described as "one of the giants in the field of artificial intelligence" by UCLA computer science professor Richard Korf.[18] His work on causality has "revolutionized the understanding of causality in statistics, psychology, medicine and the social sciences" according to the Association for Computing Machinery.[19]

Notable contributions

Books

Awards

See also

External links

Notes and References

  1. http://amturing.acm.org/award_winners/pearl_2658896.cfm Judea Pearl – A. M. Turing Award winner
  2. BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award (2021). Judea Pearl - Announcement Speech, June 2022.
  3. Web site: Gold, Virginia . Judea Pearl Wins ACM A.M. Turing Award for Contributions that Transformed Artificial Intelligence . . March 15, 2012. March 15, 2012. https://web.archive.org/web/20120317233913/http://www.acm.org/press-room/news-releases/2012/turing-award-11 . March 17, 2012. ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery today named Judea Pearl of the University of California, Los Angeles the winner of the 2011 ACM A.M. Turing Award for innovations that enabled remarkable advances in the partnership between humans and machines that is the foundation of Artificial Intelligence (AI). . dead.
  4. 10.1109/MIC.2006.107. Judea Pearl Interview: A Giant of Artificial Intelligence Takes on All-Too-Real Hatred. IEEE Internet Computing. 10. 5. 6–8. 2006. Goth . G.. 9932352.
  5. Fonda. Daren. September 27, 2003. On the Trail of Daniel Pearl. TIME. July 20, 2011. https://web.archive.org/web/20031001222839/http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,490640,00.html. dead. October 1, 2003.
  6. Web site: Who killed Daniel Pearl?. https://web.archive.org/web/20030629230648/http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/EF28Df02.html. unfit. June 29, 2003. Pepe . Escobar. Pepe Escobar . Asia Times Online. June 28, 2003. Book Review. July 20, 2011.
  7. News: This Day in Jewish History / Journalist Daniel Pearl murdered in Pakistan by Islamic terrorists. Haaretz.
  8. Web site: Judea Pearl - A.M. Turing Award Laureate. amturing.acm.org.
  9. Q&A: A Sure Thing . Leah Hoffmann . . 55 . 6 . 135–136 . 10.1145/2184319.2184347 . 2012. free .
  10. Web site: International Advisory Board Profiles. 2011. NGO Monitor. July 20, 2011.
  11. News: Wilkinson. Phaedra. From the community: With My Whole Broken Heart. Chicago Tribune. July 10, 2015.
  12. Web site: Biography of Dr. Judea Pearl . 2011 . . July 20, 2011. dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20110630070829/http://www.danielpearl.org/about_us/Judea_Pearl.html . June 30, 2011.
  13. News: Daniel Pearl and the Normalization of Evil . Judea. Pearl. Judea Pearl. The Wall Street Journal. February 3, 2009. A15. July 20, 2011.
  14. Web site: Jonathan Sacks. Judaism: Covenant & Conversation: Against Hate. Israel National News. September 5, 2014.
  15. Web site: Tragedy and Opportunity: The parents of slain journalist Danny Pearl have devoted their lives to improving Muslim-Jewish relations.. July 12, 2013. Mathew Philips. I turned secular at the age of 11, by divine revelation. [Laughs.] I was standing on the roof of the house my father built, looking down on the street and suddenly it became very clear to me that there is no God..
  16. Web site: Robots and the Illusion of Free Will – Conversation with Judea Pearl, Rumelhart Prize Winner. The Science Network. Starting from 41:14. July 22, 2011. I'm, of course, prisoner of my upbringing, which means my store of metaphors comes from the Bible and comes from history of the Jewish people. But I don't believe in God. Actually, I know there isn't [a] God..
  17. News: Fishman Orlins. Susan. The Price of Being Jewish: An Interview with Judea Pearl. Moment. November 2006. Did you pray for Danny’s safe return? No, I don't believe in a God [that] would listen to me. But I do pray every morning. I lay tefillin. I started a year ago. But aren’t you a secular Jew? I'll give you the same answer I gave 10 Muslims who joined me for dinner one Friday night. I said, 'Oh, it's Friday night. I have to do Kiddush.'.
  18. Amundson. Marlys. Fall 2004. A Profile of Judea Pearl – Computer Science Pioneer, Visionary. UCLA Engineer. 12. 16–17. July 20, 2011.
  19. Web site: ACM HONORS INNOVATORS WHO CHANGED THE SCIENTIFIC WORLD. April 27, 2004 . Association for Computing Machinery. New York. July 20, 2011.
  20. Web site: AI pioneer named to Carnegie Corporation's annual great immigrants list | UCLA . June 25, 2024 . UCLA.
  21. Web site: ASA Fellow Announcement. American Statistical Association. May 12, 2019.
  22. http://www.nasonline.org/news-and-multimedia/news/april-29-2014-NAS-Election.html National Academy of Sciences Members and Foreign Associates Elected
  23. 10.1109/MIS.2011.64 . AI's Hall of Fame . . 26 . 4 . 5–15 . 2011 . September 4, 2015 . December 16, 2011 . https://web.archive.org/web/20111216235804/http://www.computer.org/cms/Computer.org/ComputingNow/homepage/2011/0811/rW_IS_AIsHallofFame.pdf . dead .