Making a Preliminary Case for a Universal Course on AI Literacy: An Overview

Aim/Purpose Artificial Intelligence (AI) has pervaded all walks of life and is touted as a panacea for many of life’s ills. Yet, few consumers of AI know what it entails or what its impact on society may be. The potential to use AI for good is vast, but the potential to misuse is not trivial. Background To mitigate the misuse of AI, it is imperative that consumers of AI fully grasp what it is, what it can do, and how to use it effectively and ethically. This study proposes the creation of a universal AI Literacy course to be deployed across universities. Methodology A literature review was conducted to determine what we know about AI literacy and then, based on three models including Bloom’s Taxonomy, a framework was proposed for an universal AI Literacy course. Contribution The proposed universal AI Literacy course framework was used to develop content for a 16-week course on AI literacy Findings There is a need for a universal AI Literacy course that encapsulates information specific to AI such as prompting and ethicality. It should also ensure that the content included is robust enough to transcend disciplines and lends itself to pedagogical value. Recommendations for Practitioners Educators should develop AI Literacy courses that embody aspects of the framework provided herein so that they may test its efficacy while also evolving the course content to meet prevailing needs. Other users can also use the findings of this paper to become better consumers of AI. Recommendations for Researchers Researchers should continue to develop/update frameworks upon which an AI Literacy course is based Impact on Society Through the development of a universal AI Literacy course, consumers of AI applications will be better versed in evaluating its efficacy, utility and trustworthiness Future Research Future research will seek to validate the proposed AI Literacy course content by getting faculty from different disciplines to assess its utility and robustness. Other research will deploy an AI Literacy course to determine its pedagogical value as well as the efficacy of the course content.