Claim · 2021-04-26 · publication · Stated in source · Supported

Mitchell's paper of April 2021 describes four fallacies that lead to overconfident predictions about AI, including the assumption that narrow advances lie on a continuum with general intelligence, and states that AI systems remain far from the general abilities that benchmark names suggest.

One recorded claim. The claim panel gives its qualification, the source passages with their place in each source, and how it was checked.

What it connects

Why AI is Harder Than We Think → bears on → Capabilities will plateau

Where it appears

Arguments about catastrophic risk from advanced AI →

Claim and evidence

Why AI is Harder Than We Thinkbears on ↓Capabilities will plateau

Machine-checked, not reviewed by an editorStated in sourceSupported

Supporting evidence: primary · 1 source

Date: 2021-04-26 · publication Records dated 2021 →
Role: Context
Register (kind of text): Nonfiction
Missing element: It does not state that current approaches will reach limits short of general intelligence; it argues that predictions of their progress are overconfident.

Scope and limitsThe paper concerns the reliability of AI predictions and the nature of intelligence; it criticises superintelligence thought experiments by Bostrom and Russell on other grounds.

The evidence 02

primary sourceSupports the claim

Why AI is Harder Than We Think

arXiv:2104.12871 · 2021-04-26

Cite the original source

Cite the original document, not Selekoa. Check these details against it.

Source excerpt

“if people see a machine do something amazing, albeit in a narrow area, they often assume the field is that much further along toward general AI.”

Location in source PDF p. 4, "Fallacy 1: Narrow intelligence is on a continuum with general intelligence"

How it was read Retrieved directly from the publisher

Machine-checked · 2026-10-31

Source details and check notes

Authors: Melanie Mitchell
Version: Retrieved for the candidate pack on 2026-10-29 (SHA-256 6cf4c319a0d394a2e6664858a4dbb7c700c8ede94a8c3c90a830dbd4d3a0c880). arXiv v1, 26 Apr 2021.
Canonical address: Open the canonical source ↗
Accessed: 2026-10-29
Language: English (en)
Attribution: Melanie Mitchell, “Why AI is Harder Than We Think”, 2021-04-26.
Reuse: No open redistribution licence asserted. Bibliographic metadata, editorial paraphrases and short attributed quotations (at most 50 words each). Recheck terms before wider redistribution.
Check notes: Candidate pack passage, arguments about catastrophic risk from advanced AI (research/risk-debate). The quotation (26 words) matched the text retrieved for the candidate pack on 2026-10-29. Matching ignored differences of whitespace, case, quotation marks, dashes and Unicode compatibility forms, so the source’s typography can differ. No human editorial review.

primary sourceSupports the claim

Why AI is Harder Than We Think

arXiv:2104.12871 · 2021-04-26

Cite the original source

Cite the original document, not Selekoa. Check these details against it.

Source excerpt

“AI systems are still far from matching the more general human abilities we associate with the benchmarks’ names.”

Location in source PDF p. 6, end of Fallacy 3

How it was read Retrieved directly from the publisher

Machine-checked · 2026-10-31

Source details and check notes

Authors: Melanie Mitchell
Version: Retrieved for the candidate pack on 2026-10-29 (SHA-256 6cf4c319a0d394a2e6664858a4dbb7c700c8ede94a8c3c90a830dbd4d3a0c880). arXiv v1, 26 Apr 2021.
Canonical address: Open the canonical source ↗
Accessed: 2026-10-29
Language: English (en)
Attribution: Melanie Mitchell, “Why AI is Harder Than We Think”, 2021-04-26.
Reuse: No open redistribution licence asserted. Bibliographic metadata, editorial paraphrases and short attributed quotations (at most 50 words each). Recheck terms before wider redistribution.
Check notes: Candidate pack passage, arguments about catastrophic risk from advanced AI (research/risk-debate). The quotation (18 words) matched the text retrieved for the candidate pack on 2026-10-29. Matching ignored differences of whitespace, case, quotation marks, dashes and Unicode compatibility forms, so the source’s typography can differ. No human editorial review.

Status and meaning

Editorial status. Not reviewed by an editor. An exploratory record that no editor has accepted. This status does not say whether a person has read any linked passage. Each evidence record above shows how it was checked.

Relation. A passage of the document bears on the proposition without meeting its criterion; the record names the missing element. It is not an articulation and implies no influence.

Date. Date of the arXiv v1 submission.

Record ID rd-r13-mitchell-2021-harder-than-we-think