This AI Literacy Review covers studies about citizens’ confidence with AI, skills needed in jobs, strategies and frameworks for libraries, AI literacy for policymakers and government teams, guidelines for technology developers in education, the need for academic staff to guide students’ AI literacy development, and more. There are growing calls to demystify AI to support students and the public to engage with this technology.
General
A study out of the University of Florida found that “citizens who feel more confident in their ability to navigate AI technologies are more likely to engage in discussions, enhance their AI literacy and ultimately support AI policies.” (read the summary of the study in Empowering Citizens in the Age of AI: The Importance of Efficacy and Literacy)
Conor Grennan discusses a Boston Consulting Group report How Work Preferences Are Shifting in the Age of GenAI showing that job security has leapt to the number one slot in importance, and learning and career development has also jumped up in importance. 49% of respondents thought that Gen. AI would require some new skills, and 21% thought it would require significant reskilling. 86% had heard about Gen. AI but only 39% are using it regularly (mostly for learning, research, and admin tasks). (see Conor Grennan’s LinkedIn post)
Ethan Mollick recommends organizations start with Gen. AI by running internal no-code hackathons to give staff an incentive to transform their own work, gather examples, and learn from mistakes. (see Ethan Mollick’s LinkedIn post)
Jules White reminds us that it’s more useful to think of Gen. AI as something different from a search engine, something that we can send information and instructions to (prompts) and then it processes them to help us solve problems. (see Jules White’s LinkedIn post)
Angelo Biasi writes about AI-powered digital assessment platform Credably.ai and its release of an AI and Human Intelligence Literacy Certification to help upskill students and the general workforce. It involves learners collaborating in teams and solving real-world challenges using AI. (see Angelo Biasi’s LinkedIn post)
Kweilin Ellingrud in Forbes How Leaders Can Deploy AI And Boost Skills For The New Future Of Work points to automation and generative AI as an opportunity for productivity growth, but only if workers can successfully transition from declining occupations to rising ones and can gain the skills needed to match the jobs of the future.
Anna Mills argues that skepticism about AI should be a part of AI literacy, and that we shouldn’t shut down people who have negative or critical responses to this technology. (see Anna Mills’ LinkedIn post)
Jon Ippolito examines how AI tools can rewrite reality, as in the FoxVox Chrome extension that rewrites whatever is on a website according to a particular political viewpoint. This raises lots of questions and suggests that AI literacy will have to cover even more about filter bubbles created by algorithms and background processes to keep people hooked into a platform. (see Jon Ippolito’s LinkedIn post)
The non-profit AI Design Corps offers open-source AI literacy resources covering ChatGPT, Midjourney, and more, plus a YouTube video by Joanna Peña-Bickley on the women who have been part of the history of AI.
World Education publishes AI Literacy Matters for everyone – A Brief to Raise Awareness of AI Literacy which explains why it’s important and some examples of it in practice.
Libraries
In The Dangers of AI Avoidance in Libraries, Nick Tanzi discusses that early engagement is important for librarians to gain a working knowledge of AI and make informed decisions: “People fear what they don’t understand. This is certainly true of AI. Avoiding the technology–or more broadly–avoiding any dialogue around it, is a recipe for disaster….Demystifying the technology for staff can go a long way to dispelling fears, or at least distilling them to matters real and not imagined.”
The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions’ special interest group on AI had a working document released in November 2023 Developing a Library Strategic Response to Artificial Intelligence that discusses a strategy of taking a lead role in promoting AI literacy since the public needs to understand these new technologies. The organization also recently launched a digital literacy intervention aimed at young people called Everywhere, All the Time that fosters critical conversations about technology and AI.
The Australian Library and Information Association launches its Framework of Skills, Knowledge and Ethics for the Library and Information Services Workforce. One of the 8 professional knowledge domains is Technologies, which includes AI and machine learning as well as the potential of emerging technologies for future library and information practice.
Government
The EU AI Act is officially published on July 12, 2024 and will come into effect in stages, with the obligations relating to AI literacy becoming applicable in February 2025.
The Center for Security and Emerging Technology at Georgetown University includes the development of AI literacy among policymakers and the public in its report Enabling Principles for AI Governance.
Karla Taboada at Auckland Transport in New Zealand writes about her data science team’s success in promoting AI literacy education through community of practice and educational sessions for technical and non-technical teams (and their children too!) to help prepare everyone for today and tomorrow’s world full of AI. (read Karla Taboada’s LinkedIn post)
Education
The US Department of Education’s report Designing for Education with Artificial Intelligence: An Essential Guide for Developers recommends that technology developers can grow trust by contributing to AI literacy for teachers, parents, students, and others. This can include explaining data and AI concepts and skills that help demystify how AI is used.
In the journal article Waiting for the revolution: how higher education institutions initially responded to ChatGPT, Lene Korseberg and Mari Elken from Norway look at how higher education institutions perceived ChatGPT, and the lack of technological competence to see what AI technology represents. They conclude: “The scope of training needed is considerable, if academic staff now need to be sufficiently competent to educate future technology users with relevant digital skills, and to be aware of limitations and opportunities inherent in the technology. This cannot be isolated into a single LLM course but would need to penetrate across different subjects and courses to make it relevant for the subject domain.”
Nancy Cooke at Arizona State University believes it should be the job of the university and its professors to teach AI literacy to students, whether that’s at the basic level of a user of ChatGPT, or at the level of programming an AI system. She discusses the idea of centaur-type teams where humans and AI work together, keeping humans at the center, working in multidisciplinary ways.
Carie Cardamone in Part 2: The AI Marble Layer Cake – Reconsidering In-Class and Out-of-Class Learning & Assessment examines ways to guide students’ engagement with AI and support their AI literacy development.
Jerry Crisci discusses the importance of having AI training for Board of Education members and trustees in addition to teachers. These can look at more big picture issues and help prepare the whole organization for the impact of AI in schools. (see Jerry Crisci’s LinkedIn post)
Rob Nelson reviews José Antonio Bowen and C. Edward Watson’s book Teaching with AI: A Practical Guide to a New Era of Human Learning and calls for educators to historicize their practices and make informed decisions about how to approach AI in the classroom. (see Rob Nelson’s guest post on Nick Potkalitsky’s Substack)
Gem Hallett in AI Literacy: Essential Skills for Next Gen Careers writes that we can support young adults to prepare for AI by demystifying it, encouraging curiosity, focusing on soft skills, and staying informed.
Shout Out UK covers the AI literacy project at Queen Mary University London run by Dr. Xue Zhou that is encountering resistance from staff but a huge amount of interest from students. She sees AI literacy as an important skill to help students be employable.
Diana Graber in Why Artificial Intelligence (AI) Literacy Should Be Integrated into Digital Literacy points out that since we still haven’t convinced all schools that digital literacy is important, it makes sense to integrate AI literacy rather than position it as a stand-alone curriculum that might overwhelm schools.
