Towards a public understanding of AI: on the design and delivery of an introductory course for a general audience

Abstract Despite the increasing pervasiveness and interest in AI, there is a lack of public awareness of the benefits and pitfalls of the technology. Existing courses aimed at developing AI literacy skills are largely confined to educational and professional settings. These offerings tend to be technocentric, homogenous, and focus on specific applications of AI and their usage. A key challenge in designing AI literacy offerings for the public is the issue of contextualisation—i.e., relating the material to be taught to the prior knowledge of the learners. As a step towards addressing this gap we show, via an example, how AI literacy courses can be designed and delivered in a way that appeals to specific demographics within the public. Our approach is based on the principles of Emergent Design, a framework which is grounded in the cultural background and prior knowledge of the learner community. This approach facilitates the development of educational interventions that are responsive, relevant, and tailored to the lived experiences of learners. The novel aspects of our work are twofold: a) a presentation of the design, development and detailed content of an AI literacy course for a heretofore neglected demographic—older adults in the general public and, b) a demonstration of the utility of Emergent Design in developing AI literacy courses for audiences that are hard to reach and less familiar with technology. In addition, the study also provides empirical support for the development of AI literacy theory within informal learning contexts for adult learners.