Currents 036: Melanie Mitchell on Why AI is Hard



Jim talks to Melanie Mitchell about her recent paper, “Why AI is Harder Than We Think”

Melanie Mitchell & Jim talk about her recent paper, “Why AI is Harder Than We Think”. They cover AI fantasies, self-driving cars, prediction failures, AI winters & summers, Melanie’s four fallacies, common sense, theory of mind, defining understanding, embodied cognition, the role of emotions in intelligence, the future of AI, and more.

Melanie Mitchell is Professor of Computer Science at Portland State University, and External Professor and Co-Chair of the Science Board at the Santa Fe Institute. Mitchell has also held faculty or professional positions at the University of Michigan, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the OGI School of Science and Engineering. She is the author or editor of seven books and numerous scholarly papers in the fields of artificial intelligence, cognitive science, and complex systems, including her latest, Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans.