Are We Thinking Correctly About AI Intelligence? – Quanta Magazine

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August 22, 2026

Are We Thinking Correctly About AI Intelligence? – Quanta Magazine — a-post-about-ai-generative-ai-and-news-about-artificial

Are We Thinking Correctly About AI Intelligence? By Steven Strogatz and Janna Levin

August 20, 2026 Computer scientist Melanie Mitchell discusses why artificial intelligence doesn’t “think” or “reason” like humans, and how we can create better methods for measuring machine cognition. Comment

Chanelle Nibbelink for Quanta Magazine

Introduction

Authors Steven Strogatz Podcast Host Janna Levin Contributing Columnist August 20, 2026 View PDF/Print Mode

artificial intelligence computer science deep learning large language models machine learning natural language processing neural networks The Joy of Why All topics

When an LLM answers a question, is it reasoning like humans, or just producing text that looks like reasoning? The distinction isn’t just philosophical, this determines what we can trust AI to do, how closely we need to supervise it, and ultimately what its real-world impact will turn out to be.

Melanie Mitchell (opens a new tab) at the Santa Fe Institute argues that we lack adequate methods for measuring machine cognition, and that AI is a form of “alien intelligence” that operates through non-human cognitive mechanisms. In this episode of The Joy of Why, Mitchell tells Steven Strogatz how methods that psychologists use to study cognition in other kinds of “alien intelligence” — babies and animals — can be adapted to probe AI, and she lays out six principles for better assessing machine cognition. Their conversation ranges from the challenge of interpreting what’s happening inside these systems, to recent AI-assisted breakthroughs in mathematics, to why a math-performing horse from the early 1900s offers a cautionary tale for how we assess intelligence. Listen on Apple Podcasts (opens a new tab), Spotify (opens a new tab), TuneIn (opens a new tab) or your favorite podcasting app, or you can stream it from Quanta.