No. 97 in America · Week of November 9, 2026
Computer scientist, Santa Fe Institute
Melanie Mitchell is a computer scientist at the Santa Fe Institute who studies analogy and complex systems.
Photo: Xuthoria, CC BY-SA 4.0
Score breakdown
Nine parts, measured fresh each week. This is where Melanie Mitchell's points came from, and the evidence behind each one.
Debate record
Argued against the motion that AI is an existential threat at the Munk Debates, on the winning side.
Mitchell earned her Ph.D. under Douglas Hofstadter and John Holland and developed the Copycat cognitive architecture.
She writes widely on what artificial intelligence can and cannot do.
On the record
2023
June 22, 2023
Formal debateWon the audience vote
Against Max Tegmark and Yoshua Bengio · Munk Debates, Toronto
Melanie Mitchell argued against the motion with Yann LeCun. The con side won the audience vote, swinging 3 percent.
The people on this list argue in public for a living. At SuperDebate you get the same stage: one question, a clear structure, and a room that votes. It is how you learn to win an argument without making enemies.
