Stuart Russell | |
|---|---|
 Russell in 2019 | |
| Born | Stuart Jonathan Russell 1962 (age 63–64) Portsmouth, England |
| Citizenship | British; American[citation needed] |
| Alma mater | University of Oxford (BA) Stanford University (PhD) |
| Known for | Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach |
| Awards |
|
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Artificial intelligence[3] |
| Institutions | |
| Thesis | Analogical and Inductive Reasoning (1987) |
| Doctoral advisor | Michael Genesereth[4] |
| Doctoral students | |
| Other notable students | |
| Website | people |
Stuart Jonathan RussellOBE FRS (born 1962) is a Britishcomputer scientist known for his contributions toartificial intelligence (AI).[5][3] He is a professor of computer science at theUniversity of California, Berkeley and was from 2008 to 2011 an adjunct professor of neurological surgery at theUniversity of California, San Francisco.[6][7] He holds the Smith-Zadeh Chair in Engineering atUniversity of California, Berkeley.[8] He founded and leads theCenter for Human-Compatible Artificial Intelligence (CHAI) at UC Berkeley[9] and the International Association for Safe and Ethical Artificial Intelligence (IASEAI).[10] Russell is the co-author withPeter Norvig of the authoritative textbook of the field of AI:Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach used in more than 1,500 universities in 135 countries.[11]
Russell was born inPortsmouth, England, and attendedSt Paul's School, London. He studiedphysics atWadham College, Oxford, and was awarded hisBachelor of Arts degree with first-class honours in 1982. He moved to the United States to complete hisPhD incomputer science atStanford University in 1986 for research oninductive reasoning andanalogical reasoning supervised byMichael Genesereth.[4][12] His PhD was supported by aNATO studentship from the UKScience and Engineering Research Council.[12]
After his 1986 PhD, he joined the faculty of theUniversity of California, Berkeley as a professor of computer science.[13] From 2008 to 2011 he also held an appointment as adjunct professor of Neurological Surgery at theUniversity of California, San Francisco, where he pursued research in computational physiology andintensive-care unit monitoring.[6][7] He is also an Honorary Fellow atWadham College, Oxford.[8]His research in the area ofartificial intelligence[14] includes contributions tomachine learning,[15]probabilistic reasoning, knowledge representation, planning, real-time decision making, multitarget tracking,computer vision,[16] and inversereinforcement learning.[9] He has also been an active participant in the movement to ban the manufacture and use ofautonomous weapons.[17][18]
In 2016, he founded the Center for Human-Compatible Artificial Intelligence at UC Berkeley, with co-principal investigatorsPieter Abbeel, Anca Dragan,Tom Griffiths,Bart Selman,Joseph Halpern,Michael Wellman and Satinder Singh Baveja.[19] Russell has published several hundred conference and journal articles[6][20][21] as well as several books, includingThe Use of Knowledge in Analogy and Induction andDo the Right Thing: Studies in Limited Rationality (with Eric Wefald).[16][22] Along withPeter Norvig, he is the author ofArtificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach,[23] a textbook used by over 1,500 universities in 135 countries.[24] He is on the Scientific Advisory Board for theFuture of Life Institute[25] and the advisory board of theCentre for the Study of Existential Risk.[26]
In 2017 he collaborated with theFuture of Life Institute to produce a video,Slaughterbots, about swarms ofdrones assassinating political opponents, and presented this to a United Nations meeting about theConvention on Certain Conventional Weapons.[27][28]
In 2018 he contributed an interview to the documentaryDo You Trust This Computer?.[29]
His book,Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control, was published by Viking on 8 October 2019.[30] His work is aligned withHuman-Centered Artificial Intelligence themes. His former doctoral students includeMarie desJardins,Eric Xing andShlomo Zilberstein.[4]
Russell gave the 2021Reith Lectures, broadcast onBBC Radio 4, onLiving with Artificial Intelligence[2][31] with lectures on "The Biggest Event in Human History",[32] "AI in warfare",[33] "AI in the economy"[34] and "AI: A Future for Humans".[35]
In March 2023, Russell signed anopen letter from theFuture of Life Institute calling for "all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful thanGPT-4". The letter has been signed by over 30,000 individuals, including AI researchers such asYoshua Bengio andGary Marcus.[36][37] In a January 2025 article inNewsweek, Russell wrote "In other words, the AGI race is a race towards the edge of a cliff."[38]
Russell was co-winner, in 1995, of theIJCAI Computers and Thought Award at theInternational Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence, the premier international award in AI for researchers under 35.[39] In 2022, he received theIJCAI Award for Research Excellence, only the second person (afterHector Levesque) to win both of IJCAI's main research awards. He is a fellow of theAssociation for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI),[1] elected in 1997, theAssociation for Computing Machinery (ACM)[40] (2003) and theAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science (2011).[41] In 2005, he was awarded the ACM Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award.[42] In 2012, he was appointed to theBlaise Pascal Chair in Paris, awarded to "internationally acclaimed foreign scientists in all disciplines," as well as the senior Chaire d'excellence of France'sAgence Nationale de la Recherche.[43]
Russell served as vice chair of theWorld Economic Forum's Council on AI and Robotics and is currently a member of its Global AI Council. Other awards he has received include theNational Science Foundation'sPresidential Young Investigator Award, the World Technology Award, the Mitchell Prize, and theAssociation for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence Outstanding Educator Award.[16] He was appointedOfficer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the2021 Birthday Honours for services to AI research.[44]
In 2025 Russell was electedFellow of the Royal Society.[45] He was also elected to theNational Academy of Engineering in 2025.[46]
I think what's happening in social media is already worse thanChernobyl, it has caused a huge amount of dislocation
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| Artists | |
| People | |
| Other | |
