Toward human-centric A.I.

Twenty years ago, Stuart Russell co-wrote a book titled Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (AIMA), destined to become the dominant text in its field. Near the end of the book, he posed a question: "What if A.I. does succeed?" Today, progress toward human-level artificial intelligence (A.I.) is advancing rapidly, and Russell, a professor of computer science, is posing the same question with more urgency. The benefits of A.I. are not at issue. If improperly constrained, Russell warns, a machine as smart as or smarter than humans "is of no use whatsoever -- in fact it's catastrophic."