Is She a Superhero for Artificial Intelligence?

When Terah Lyons arrives at the Flywheel Coffee Roasters in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury, she is greeted so enthusiastically that she laughs with surprise. But this can't have been the first such welcome. Even if you don't know who she is, the ease and poise with which she walks and the warmth of her smile make it hard not to be struck by her presence. And as if on cue, from the speaker overhead comes Alicia Keys' hit song "You Don't Know My Name." In October 2017, Lyons was appointed founding executive director of the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence, a nonprofit started by the world's leading AI companies with the goal of ensuring AI is applied in ways that benefit people and society.