Article
AI Literacy Is Becoming the New Digital Divide
AI Literacy: The Gap Between Awareness and Real Understanding
The more I talk with friends and acquaintances about AI, automation, and the future of work, the more I notice something alarming.
Most People Have Never Actually Used AI
First, most people of working age have never actually tried any language model. For them, AI is just a word they heard somewhere in the news, but they have no real sense of what it actually is. Occasionally, they will joke about it, and that is about it. What really struck me was how mainstream media in Slovakia report on AI. The only mention I caught recently was a news piece asking an AI who the next Pope might be. If this is the standard, no wonder the information gap keeps growing.
Second, the generation that today has only a vague idea of what AI is has lived through several tech booms. They remember that between media hype and actual impact on their lives, it often took a decade, or longer. If you look at how slowly some parts of the Slovak public sector have adopted digital reforms, it can easily take twenty years. These past experiences shape how some people view today’s changes, and honestly, I completely understand their perspective.
But my perspective is very different.
I first started working with generative AI around the turn of 2022 and 2023. Right from the beginning, I could see how much it accelerated my work, especially in programming. At the same time, I started feeling a strange emptiness and restlessness, which I wrote about on this blog. Over time, my view evolved, and I have gathered all my posts on this topic into a dedicated section.
It is important to realise that while hundreds of millions of people have briefly interacted with AI tools, only a relatively small fraction have had deep, hands-on experience. This small group clearly sees how radically the world can change within just one or two years. They notice that today's technological landscape is already vastly different from what it was just a few months ago.
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Summary
Common questions on this article's topic
How many people have actually used AI tools like ChatGPT?
Why do some people underestimate how fast AI is changing the world?
What is the AI knowledge gap?
Why is AI literacy being compared to reading literacy?
What can individuals do to close the AI knowledge gap?
Could the AI knowledge gap become a source of social inequality?
What is AI literacy?
How is AI changing the world?
Is AI overhyped?
If you have any thoughts, questions, or feedback, feel free to drop me a message at mail@richardgolian.com.
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