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This research-to-practice paper presents a curriculum, “AI Literacy for All,” to promote an interdisciplinary under-standing of AI, its socio-technical implications, and its practical applications for all levels of education. With the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence (AI), there is a need for AI literacy that goes beyond the traditional AI education curriculum. AI literacy has been conceptualized in various ways, including public literacy, competency building for designers, conceptual understanding of AI concepts, and domain-specific upskilling. Most of these conceptualizations were established before the public release of Generative AI (Gen-AI) tools such as ChatGPT. AI education has focused on the principles and applications of AI through a technical lens that emphasizes the mastery of AI principles, the mathematical foundations underlying these technologies, and the programming and mathematical skills necessary to implement AI solutions. The non-technical component of AI literacy has often been limited to social and ethical implications, privacy and security issues, or the experience of interacting with AI. In AI Literacy for all, we emphasize a balanced curriculum that includes technical as well as non-technical learning outcomes to enable a conceptual understanding and critical evaluation of AI technologies in an interdisciplinary socio-technical context. The paper presents four pillars of AI literacy: understanding the scope and technical dimensions of AI, learning how to interact with Gen-AI in an informed and responsible way, the socio-technical issues of ethical and responsible AI, and the social and future implications of AI. While it is important to include all learning outcomes for AI education in a Computer Science major, the learning outcomes can be adjusted for other learning contexts, including, non-CS majors, high school summer camps, the adult workforce, and the public. This paper advocates for a shift in AI literacy education to offer a more interdisciplinary socio-technical approach as a pathway to broaden participation in AI. This approach not only broadens students' perspectives but also prepares them to think critically about integrating AI into their future professional and personal lives.
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This content will become publicly available on April 25, 2026
Empowering Adults with AI Literacy: Using Short Videos to Transform Understanding and Harness Fear for Critical Thinking
Despite the importance of AI literacy for both children and adults, adults have been understudied. We developed short videos for adults that provided training on the basics of AI understanding, use, and evaluation. In an online experiment, 94 adults aged 30-49 were randomly assigned in a 1:2 ratio to view either short videos on AI history (control group) or AI literacy training videos (treatment group). The results showed that the intervention significantly improved people’s self-efficacy of AI use but not in AI understanding or evaluation. Interestingly, participants’ fears of AI bias, privacy violations, and job replacement increased after the training, although they remained below the midpoints. We argue that the heightened fear in the treatment group reflects a foundation for critical thinking skills, as it moves them closer to a more calibrated, moderate level of fear. Therefore, this study uniquely contributes by utilizing short-form experiential content to both educate and foster a more informed, critical interaction with AI technologies. The implications of designing AI literacy educational materials for adults were discussed.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2431223
- PAR ID:
- 10650876
- Publisher / Repository:
- ACM
- Date Published:
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 8
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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