The more I read from Norvig, the more I am convinced that history will judge him as being one of the most influential computer scientists of the post-Turing era.
His ability to find elegant solutions in the hardest looking problems, and communicate them so well that you feel it was so obvious that you should have found it immediately, is unparalleled.
Norvig is an excellent popularizer and accessible writer, and of course also a very sharp researcher. Because he works in industry I can understand why he might have a higher profile on a site like HN. But "most influential of the post-Turing" era is an incredibly high bar. His personal research contributions are (afaik) on par with what you would expect of a professor at a top school, e.g. Berkeley, where he used to work. But there are hundreds of such people, even just within AI; I think it's only fair to recognize their achievements and influence as well. Personally, my vote for most influential would probably go to someone on the Turing award list... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_Award)
This is not to dump on Norvig at all - he's smarter and more accomplished than I'll ever be, and between the popularity of his internet writings and his co-authored textbook being used in pretty much every undergraduate AI class taught in the past 20 years, he's certainly one of the most widely read computer scientists of all time; probably more people have read his work than ever read Turing's. I just want to push back a bit on the culture of idolization and hero worship that sometimes develops around popular scientists (see also: Feynman, though he did at least win a Nobel prize); it tends to blind people to the true depth of talent and knowledge that exists in the world.
I have to play Devil's advocate here. An interesting spelling corrector does not place someone in the annals of computer science history as "one of the most influential computer scientists of the post-Turing era."
I think that the spelling corrector was cited to support the grandparent's assertion that Norvig can "communicate them so well that you feel it was so obvious that you should have found it immediately".
His ability to find elegant solutions in the hardest looking problems, and communicate them so well that you feel it was so obvious that you should have found it immediately, is unparalleled.