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Fact checking Moravec's paradox

Arvind Narayanan · 29 Jan 2026

Read the piece on normaltech.ai ↗

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Arvind Narayanan did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

  1. Our reading

    Moravec's paradox reflects which problems AI researchers find worth working on, not a real predictor of what is easy or hard for AI.

    Their wordsIt is really a statement about what the AI community finds it worthwhile to work on. It doesn't have any predictive power about which problems are going to be easy or hard for AI.

  2. Our reading

    The slow diffusion of new AI capabilities gives society time to react to them, though that time is usually wasted before panic sets in.

    Their wordsSince diffusion of new capabilities takes a long time, that gives us plenty of time to react - time that we often squander, and then panic!

  3. Our reading

    Superhuman AI reasoning is a myth.

    Their wordsMuch of my writing is based on the idea that superhuman AI reasoning is a myth.

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