A dynamic life.

David Blackwell was a mathematician, a father of eight, a self-proclaimed dilettante, and a founder of modern machine learning.

To hear Blackwell lecture was to witness a master of the art. He predicted AI. —Stephen M. Stigler

David made the subject come to life… He stripped the problem of all excess baggage and presented a solution in full elegance. —Peter J. Bickel

Dave Blackwell is one of my role models… He had a way of cutting through massive detail to get to the heart of a problem. —Thomas S. Ferguson

I‘ve met some of the smartest people in the world, Nobel prize winners, professors at the world top university and David H. Blackwell was a great among greats. —Persi Diaconis

David Blackwell was an intellectual giant. But he was modest and unassuming on a personal level. —Albert Lo

A dynamic life.

Blackwell's emphasis on optimal decision-making under uncertainty directly mirrors today's AI challenges: how to act justly when data is incomplete, biased, or adversarial. He didn't just help create the tools powering AI—he provided blueprints for making those tools fairer.