Being Critical is the Difference Between AI Proficiency and AI Literacy

I read a really interesting post from Andrew Cantarutti on Substack that focuses on AI Literacy. It also made me think about similar concerns that I currently have with our Digital Competence Framework (DCF), which I may come back to in a future post. In the piece Andrew explores what he believes are the difference between proficiency and literacy. The former he sees as a tool to be used, and the latter as a subject to be understood. That proficiency is knowing how to use something and literacy as understanding what something is; how it works, whose interests it serves, what it costs and what does it do to the person using it. 

"A student who can write an effective prompt is not AI literate in any meaningful sense. A student who understands why the prompt produces what it produces, who built the system and why, and what it costs them cognitively and the planet environmentally has developed critical literacy. The former proceeds from the assumption that the tool’s use is necessary, that its existence is inevitable, and that its utility is unassailable. The latter affords the student critical distance — the distance required to question those same assumptions."

As a slight aside, it's funny how in the last week Donald Trump shut down access to Anthropic's latest models Fable 5 and Mythos 5 to countries outside the US. Just proving that LLMs are not necessarily 'necessary' and 'inevitable' and for example, can be easily switched off to countries on the whim of political leader.

"AI is NOT inevitable. That is just a marketing strategy from AI companies to get you to buy their products without being critical. If you think something is inevitable, you believe you don’t have the power to fight back because “it will happen either way." That’s a fallacy. AI is not like the rain or snow. It is not “natural”. It is human-made, and like ANY other human-made thing, we can collectively decide to stop it." Catharina Doria (AI Ethicist)

So, being critical is hugely important, especially when it comes down to developing 'ethical and informed' learners. Dr Sam Illingworth refers to this as using AI "with their eyes open", which is a phrase I really like. Going forward I would like to see Wales following the lead of the Norwegian government, who recently announced a near ban on the use of generative AI with learners aged 6 to 13, however I would be extremely surprised if that happened here. Or at the very least, we should wait until there is the solid, independent evidence that learner standards are improved through the use of generative AI. I don't believe that will happen either, so if the Welsh Government are determined to introduce it into the primary sector, through an updated DCF, then I really hope that it is not just focused on AI proficiency but is accompanied by critical AI literacy. This should help learners gain the distance to question when and importantly when we should not use this feature, and use generative AI with their eyes open.