The Past, Present, and Uncertain Future of Artificial Intelligence

How can we measure the intelligence of AI systems like ChatGPT? How close are we to machines with human-level intelligence? What societal benefits can AI bring? And what risks do present and future AI systems pose?
AI is already deeply integrated into our daily lives—recognizing faces in photos, transcribing speech, curating news feeds, answering questions, and even writing essays. But as AI continues to advance rapidly, its impact is set to grow even further.
In this lecture, I will explore how modern AI works, its turbulent history, and the reality of its intelligence. I will also discuss what we should expect—and be concerned about—as AI evolves in the near and distant future.
This event is an initiative by the Dutch Institute for Emergent Phenomena (DIEP) with the support of the University of Amsterdam. Science & Cocktails Amsterdam is presented in cooperation with Paradiso Amsterdam.
Event in English, semi-seated.
Talk by
Melanie Mitchell
Melanie Mitchell is a Professor at the Santa Fe Institute, specializing in conceptual abstraction and analogy-making in artificial intelligence. She has authored or edited six books and numerous scholarly papers in AI, cognitive science, and complex systems. Her 2009 book, Complexity: A Guided Tour (Oxford University Press), won the 2010 Phi Beta Kappa Science Book Award, while her 2019 book, Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux), was shortlisted for the 2023 Cosmos Prize for Scientific Writing. Mitchell also co-hosts The Nature of Intelligence, a podcast by the Santa Fe Institute.
