

Longtime Google research scientist and author of The Joy of Search, who teaches how to think like a detective when AI can fabricate images and stories.
Dan Russell has spent nearly two decades at Google studying how people search, think, and uncover information. A pioneering researcher in online search and digital literacy, he knows how to find what others miss and spot what simply isn’t true.
As AI manufactures convincing images, fabricates stories, and blurs fact and fiction, Russell offers a powerful survival skill: thinking like a detective in the digital age.
Russell received his B.S. in Information and Computer Science from UC Irvine, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from the University of Rochester, where he specialized in AI. He realized that amplifying human intelligence, not just building machine intelligence, was his real passion, an idea that has shaped his career.
Now a Principal Scientist at Google Labs, Russell is working on an AI co-scientist project to help scientists accelerate discovery. He is the author of The Joy of Search: A Google Insider’s Guide to Going Beyond the Basics and teaches AI classes to both undergrads and grad students at Stanford.
More than five million students have taken Russell’s free online search classes, including Power Searching with Google, accumulating more than 450 years of watch time. He also led the team behind A Google a Day, a daily search-skills puzzle game.
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