creators

Stuart Russell: AI safety, Berkeley and CHAI

Stuart Russell is Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at UC Berkeley, directs the Center for Human-Compatible AI and co-wrote the standard AI textbook.

Stuart Russell is Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley, and holder of the Smith-Zadeh Chair in Engineering, having previously chaired the department. He directs the Center for Human-Compatible AI and the Kavli Center for Ethics, Science, and the Public, and is also Distinguished Professor of Computational Precision Health at UC San Francisco and an Honorary Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford. He took a BA with first-class honours in physics from Oxford in 1982 and a PhD in computer science from Stanford in 1986, then joined the Berkeley faculty. With Peter Norvig he wrote "Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach", the standard textbook in the field, translated into 14 languages and used, by his own count, in 1,500 universities in 135 countries. His 2019 book "Human Compatible: AI and the Problem of Control" argues that machines should be built uncertain about human preferences rather than given fixed objectives. He has campaigned against lethal autonomous weapons, including at the United Nations. He is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the Royal Society, and his prizes include the IJCAI Computers and Thought Award, the AAAI Feigenbaum Prize and the ACM Allen Newell Award. In 2021 he was appointed OBE and gave the BBC's Reith Lectures. He co-chairs the OECD Expert Group on AI Futures, whose OECD.AI page still lists him as a co-chair; his Berkeley biography, last updated in May 2025, also has him co-chairing the World Economic Forum's Council on AI.

Specialization

AI safety, probabilistic reasoning, AI policy, autonomous weapons

Country

United States