Melanie Mitchell

Melanie Mitchell is a Professor at the Santa Fe Institute, where she conducts research at the intersection of artificial intelligence, cognitive science, and complex systems. Her work focuses on conceptual abstraction and analogy-making in artificial intelligence systems, seeking to understand the mechanisms that enable both human and machine intelligence.

Mitchell received her PhD in Computer Science from the University of Michigan in 1990 and has held positions at numerous institutions including the University of Michigan, Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Oregon Graduate Institute, and Portland State University. Her research bridges the gap between theoretical understanding of intelligence and practical AI development.

Her recent publications explore fundamental questions about AI understanding, reasoning capabilities, and the relationship between language models and world knowledge. She has developed novel evaluation frameworks for assessing analogical reasoning and abstraction in AI systems, challenging assumptions about what current AI can truly comprehend. Her work often examines the limitations of large language models while proposing pathways for more robust and human-like artificial intelligence.

• 2010 Phi Beta Kappa Science Book Award for "Complexity: A Guided Tour"
• Finalist for the 2023 Cosmos Prize for Scientific Writing for "Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans"
• Senior Scientific Award from the Complex Systems Society
• Distinguished Cognitive Scientist Award from UC Merced
• Herbert A. Simon Award of the International Conference on Complex Systems

Mitchell actively advises numerous PhD students and postdoctoral researchers, fostering the next generation of researchers in AI and complex systems. She has also developed educational resources including the popular online course "Introduction to Complexity" on Complexity Explorer. Her public outreach includes a Substack newsletter "AI: A Guide for Thinking Humans," Science Magazine columns, and the podcast series "The Nature of Intelligence."