Peter Norvig

Why you should listen

Peter Norvig is a computer scientist and expert in both artificial intelligence and online search. Currently the Director of Research at Google Inc., Norvig was responsible for maintaining and improving the engine's core web search algorithms from 2002 to 2005. Prior to his work at Google, Norvig was NASA's chief computer scientist.

A fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence and the author of the book Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, Norvig (along with Sebastian Thrun) taught the Stanford University class "Introduction to Artificial Intelligence," which was made available to anyone in the world. More than 160,000 students from 209 countries enrolled.

Norvig is also known for penning the world's longest palindromic sentence.