As the reality of artificial intelligence continues to capture our imagination, and critical AI systems enter our world at a rapid pace, Dr. Ece Kamar, a senior researcher in the Adaptive Systems and Interaction Group at Microsoft Research, is working to help us understand AI’s far-reaching implications, both as we use it, and as we build it.

Today, Dr. Kamar talks about the complementarity between humans and machines, debunks some common misperceptions about AI, reveals how we can overcome bias and blind spots by putting humans in the AI loop, and argues convincingly that, despite everything machines can do (and they can do a lot), humans are still “the real deal.”