TomorrowTalks with Melanie Mitchell: 'Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans'

Arizona State University welcomes the award-winning author and leading computer scientist Melanie Mitchell as a guest in its TomorrowTalks series. Mitchell will discuss her book "Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans" in an online event on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025 at 12 p.m. Arizona / MST (12 p.m. PDT / 1 p.m. MDT / 8 p.m. CDT / 3 p.m. EDT). 

The conversation will be facilitated by ASU Kyle Jensen, a professor in the Department of English and assistant dean of artificial intelligence and emerging digital technologies.

The event is free of charge and open to the public; please register to attend.

About the book

With a new preface situating the book in the context of AI’s rapid progress, "Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans" offers an essential account of AI’s turbulent history and an accessible explanation of the different kinds of AI: how they work, how they fail, and how they compare to human intelligence and understanding. Along the way, Mitchell introduces the dominant models of modern AI and machine learning, describing cutting-edge AI programs, their human inventors, and the historical lines of thought underpinning recent achievements. Raising big questions about the nature of intelligence itself, she consults with fellow experts and explores the profound disconnect between the hype and the actual achievements in AI, providing a clear sense of what the field has accomplished and how much further it has to go. 

About the author

Melanie Mitchell is an American computer scientist. She is a Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. Her major work has been in the areas of analogical reasoning, complex systems, genetic algorithms and cellular automata, and her publications in those fields are frequently cited. 

About the series

TomorrowTalks place thought leaders of today in conversation with the changemakers of tomorrow: our students. Each distinguished speaker explains how they use writing to address our most pressing challenges. TomorrowTalks are a student-engagement initiative led by the Division of Humanities in The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at ASU and hosted by ASU's Humanities Institute and the Department of English in partnership with Macmillan Publishers.