Professor Stephen Hawking has warned that the creation of powerful artificial intelligence (AI) will be “either the best, or the worst thing, ever to happen to humanity“, and praised the creation of an academic institute dedicated to researching the future of intelligence as “crucial to the future of our civilisation and our species”.
praise 赞扬
creation of an academic institute 建立学术机构
dedicated 专用
dedicated to researching the future of intelligence 专用于研究未来的智能

praised the (creation of an academic institute) (dedicated to researching the future of intelligence) as “crucial to the future of our civilisation and our species”.

Hawking was speaking at the opening of the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Inteelgence (LCFI) at Cambridge University, a multi-disciplinary institute that will attempt to tackle some of the open-ended questions raised by the rapid pace of development in AI research. “We spend a great deal of time studying history,” Hawking said, “which, let’s face it, is mostly the history of stupidity. So it’s a welcome change that people are studying instead the future of intelligence.”
multi-disciplinary 多学科的

While the world-renowned physicist has often been cautious about AI, rising concerns that humanity could be the architect of its own destruction if it creates a super-intelligence with a will of its own, he was also quick to highlight the positives that AI research can bring. “The potential benefits of creating intelligence are huge,” he said. “We cannot predict what we might achieve when our own minds are amplified by AI. Perhaps with the tools of this new technological revolution, we will be able to undo some of the damage done to the natural world by the last one—industrialisation. And surely we will aim to finally eradicate disease and poverty. And every aspect of our lives will be transformed. In short, success in creating AI could be the biggest event in the history of our civilisation.”|
amplifie 放大
architect of its own destruction 自身毁灭的建筑师

Huw Price, the centre’s academic director and the Bertrand Russell professor of philosophy at Cambridge University, where Hawking is also an academic, said that the centre came about partially as a result of the university’s Centre for Existential Risk. That institute examined a wider range of potential problems for humanity, while the LCFI has a narrow focus.
examined 在这里是研究的意思
narrow focus. 很窄的关注领域

AI pioneer Margaret Boden, professor of cognitive science at the University of Sussex, praised the progress of such discussions. As recently as 2009, she said, the topic wasn’t taken seriously, even among AI researchers. “AI is hugely exciting,” she said, “but it has limitations, which present grave dangers given uncritical use.”
As recently as 直到最近

The academic community is not alone in warning about the potential dangers of AI as well as the potential benefits. A number of pioneers from the technology industry, most famously the entrepreneur Elon Musk, have also expressed their concerns about the damage that a super-intelligent AI could do to humanity.
as well as 以及、同时 、同级比较 常用来连接两个并列的成分
as well
常用作状语，作“又；也”解，相当于too或also，常位于句末，无须用逗号与句子分开。如：
 
   I am going to London and my sister is going as well（＝going，too）.
   我要到伦敦去，我妹妹也要去。
 
   I not only play the guitar，I sing as well（＝I also sing ）.
   我不但弹吉他，而且还演唱。
口语中缓和语气