Princeton University Professor Arvind Narayanan and Professor Melanie Mitchell of the Santa Fe Institute, will share their insights on Artificial Intelligence in a discussion format, followed by a question and answer session.

Arvind Narayanan is a Professor of Computer Science at Princeton University and the director of the Center for Information Technology Policy. He studies the societal impact of digital technologies, especially artificial intelligence, and has co-authored a textbook on fairness and machine learning. He led the Princeton Web Transparency and Accountability Project to uncover how companies collect and use our personal information. Narayanan’s work was among the first to show how machine learning reflects cultural stereotypes, and his doctoral research showed the fundamental limits of de-identification. His book AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can’t, and How to Tell the Difference, co-written with Sayash Kapoor, takes readers through the major strains of AI, to show what can work well alongside the inherent limitations.

Melanie Mitchell is a Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. Her current research focuses on conceptual abstraction and analogy-making in artificial intelligence systems. Melanie is the author or editor of six books and numerous scholarly papers in the fields of artificial intelligence, cognitive science, and complex systems. In addition to her research, she is passionate about public outreach on science and technology.  Her 2009 book Complexity: A Guided Tour (Oxford University Press) won the 2010 Phi Beta Kappa Science Book Award, and her 2019 book Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux) was shortlisted for the 2023 Cosmos Prize for Scientific Writing. She co-hosted the podcast “The Nature of Intelligence” from the Santa Fe Institute, and writes a popular newsletter called “AI: A Guide for Thinking Humans.” 

Their books AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can't, and How to Tell the Difference by Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor and Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans by Melanie Mitchell will be offered for sale by Labyrinth Books following the lecture.