Success in the quest for artificial intelligence has the potential to bring unprecedented
benefits to humanity, and it is therefore worthwhile to investigate how to maximize these
benefits while avoiding potential pitfalls. This article gives numerous examples (which
should by no means be construed as an exhaustive list) of such worthwhile research aimed
at ensuring that AI remains robust and beneficial.

Artificial intelligence (AI) research has explored a variety of problems and approaches since
its inception, but for the last 20 years or so has been focused on the problems surrounding
the construction of intelligent agents—systems that perceive and act in some environment. In
this context," intelligence" is related to statistical and economic notions of rationality—
colloquially, the ability to make good decisions, plans, or inferences. The adoption of
probabilistic and decision-theoretic representations and statistical learning methods has led …