Melanie Mitchell: I love being able to talk to my phone and have it transcribe what I say. But there's also all these trade-offs and risks. She says we need people not just in AI or executives at big companies, but a lot of different fields kind of thinking about this as well. EconTalk is part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.
Computer Scientist and author Melanie Mitchell of Portland State University and the Santa Fe Institute talks about her book Artificial Intelligence with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Mitchell explains where we are today in the world of artificial intelligence (AI) and where we might be going. Despite the hype and excitement surrounding AI, Mitchell argues that much of what is called "learning" and "intelligence" when done by machines is not analogous to human capabilities. The capabilities of machines are highly limited to explicit, narrow tasks with little transfer to similar but different challenges. Along the way, Mitchell explains some of the techniques used in AI and how progress has been made in many areas.