The perspectives on AI in popular imagination have ranged from a useful tool to a threat, from optimistic to downright dystopian. While things are considerably less dramatic in real life, we would do well to periodically ask this of AI, a question that should be asked of all human innovation: How can it make our lives easier and better? In fact, more dimensions can be added to this very question: How can AI be repositioned beyond automation and number-crunching? How can it be made more relevant to our everyday lives? We have seen that AI excels when it augments, rather than replaces, humans and when it helps amplify our strengths of innovation, creativity, abstract thinking and, importantly, empathy.

Artificial intelligence technologies could reshape economies and societies, but more powerful algorithms do not automatically yield improved business or societal outcomes. Human-centered design thinking can help organizations get the most out of cognitive technologies. Today's artificial intelligence (AI) revolution has been made possible by the big data revolution. The machine learning algorithms researchers have been developing for decades, when cleverly applied to today's web-scale data sets, can yield surprisingly good forms of intelligence. For instance, the United States Postal Service has long used neural network models to automatically read handwritten zip code digits.