Learning AI Fundamentals

Abstract

Generative AI is again changing public understanding of what kind of tool a computer can be, much as personal computing, the internet, smartphones and web search did before it. Policy makers have accordingly recognised a need for “AI literacy,” yet definitions of that literacy are frequently shaped by businesses whose motivation is to cultivate a new generation of customers. This paper argues for alternative foundations. It proposes that information theory and Bayesian statistics deserve greater emphasis in the curriculum than they currently receive, that the everyday experience of end-user programming is a more honest starting point than the rhetoric of conversational “agents,” and that the proper aim of AI education is to form critical technical practitioners rather than compliant consumers