It's a good question and George Dvorsky at IO9 interviews Luke Muehlhauser, Executive Director of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, discusses his influences and research. I think this quote sums up the importance of his work and why we should all be interested in the expectations for artificial intelligence:

I pretty quickly realized that the intelligence explosion would be the most important event in human history, and that the most important thing I could do would be to help ensure that the intelligence explosion has a positive rather than negative impact — that is, that we end up with a "Friendly" superintelligence rather than an unfriendly or indifferent superintelligence.

If you're the least bit interested in the development or accurate portrayal of an artificial intelligence, check out the article. It is well worth your time. If you're interested in some reading that explores the negative impact of unfriendly or indifferent superintelligence, here are two recommendations I've enjoyed which contain intersting human-artifiical intelligence interactions:

Recursion by Tony Ballantyne: Looks at what happens when artificial intelligence roams free without human oversight.

Ventus by Karl Schroeder: A world where the AI arrived first and humans need to survive.

Via IO9