The future of artificial intelligence (AI) taking human jobs as predicted by the White House last week is far less extreme than what English theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking is expecting to happen. "In short, the rise of powerful AI will be either the best or the worst thing ever to happen to humanity," he told an audience at the launch of the new Cambridge University's Leverhulme Center for the Future of Intelligence (CFI) on Wednesday night in the U.K. "We do not know which." Over the past few years, Hawking, who once warned that AI could spell the end of mankind, has been joined by Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk and Microsoft founder Bill Gates in sounding the alarm on the dangers associated with it. "I am very glad someone was listening to me," Hawking, a former professor at the university, said, in reference to his and others' warnings. But Hawking's predictions for the future of AI -- and humans -- were far more optimistic than his previous doomsday comments.