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You’re Responsible for Your AI Literacy

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In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, understanding AI and its implications is more crucial than ever. During a recent vacation, a simple conversation about AI highlighted the urgent need for AI literacy.

The Importance of AI Literacy

I was recently on vacation down in the Turks and Caicos with my wife for some much-needed R&R. It was our 20th wedding anniversary trip, and the plan was to disconnect and just relax. During our time at our resort, we got into conversations with others who were there. One couple we met had kids roughly the same age as ours, and they lived in a city that I used to frequent with a past employer, so we had things to discuss. We ended up having lunch together one day, and the conversation led to AI and GenAI. My wife promptly rolled her eyes at me as our new acquaintances, who were in the banking industry, had some awareness of GenAI and ChatGPT, but had never really used it. After getting a look from my wife, I promised to show one thing and be done. So I whipped out my phone and opened ChatGPT to show him just what one of the sample prompts could do. It was a simple “Give me tips to overcome procrastination.” I clicked the prompt, the app started to write the response in real-time, and our new acquaintance had his mind blown.

This showed me, actually reminded me, that while I try hard to stay in tune with the latest and greatest in AI, not everyone is. AI literacy is a big deal and potentially a big problem if you do not take it into your own hands. Especially if workplaces and schools ban it.

Taking Control of Your AI Education

When something as big as Generative AI, and the advancement of AI in general, comes around, most people, companies, and those in positions of responsibility will take a “sit back and wait” approach. And for many valid reasons, it is a valid approach. It’s complicated. It has a lot of implications on how organizations and businesses work. For the education field, it has broader implications on how students learn, do homework, what is considered “cheating” and more.

But this isn’t the first time we’ve had a big technological change in our lives. Many of the same arguments being made today for the use of AI/GenAI were the same ones used when Google was introduced.

AI Will Become the New Normal

I wish I could tell you that all the good things that AI and Generative AI will provide us didn’t come with a dark side. The reality is that GenAI is introducing a whole slew of challenges from personal and corporate ethics to deep fakes and misinformation to hacking and cybersecurity to legal issues. While AI has been around for decades, that lonely day in September 2022 when Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and the OpenAI team launched ChatGPT for free and introduced a new way for the average human to interact with AI, Pandora’s box was opened and will never be shut again.

Since that day we now have a new way of working. A new way of learning. A new way of creating. A new way to engage with technology. For better or worse.

While GenAI will go through its own evolution from hype to questioning the value of it and the investments around continuing to develop GenAI it will become mainstream. In fact, Google, Apple and Meta are going to be the biggest players who will do it. And they are doing it now.

AI in Everyday Life – It is Here Thanks to Google, Apple and Meta

While I want you to better understand AI and GenAI specifically, companies like Google, Apple, and Meta are bringing it to you now. Today. To me, this is why you need to take your AI literacy seriously. You need to understand how each company is approaching GenAI and integrating it into your every day lives.

Apple is launching its new AI, called Apple Intelligence, with their next iPhone release in the fall of 2024. While Apple has been using AI in their phones for years, through features such as personalization, photo editing, video enhancements and more.

Google has been integrating AI into their platforms for years as well. Their latest foray is with an upgraded AI chatbot experience with the release of Gemini on Google phones. Gemini is also now featured in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides if you pay for their upgraded plans.

Google is also bringing GenAI to search results. While there has been some gaffes already in the outputs created, this will only improve over time and will change the way we engage with search and search results.

Meta is adding their own AI engines into Facebook, Instagram, Threads and What’s App. You will start to see “Ask Meta AI or Search” appear in the search bars of these apps.

The point is, these technology companies are bringing AI to you, today, and doing it in very consumer-friendly ways.

Resources to Get Started on Your AI Literacy Journey

Getting started to learn more about AI and GenAI is not challenging. There are lots of articles published daily on the topic. Here are some of my favorite resources to help you get started.

  • GenAI Tools – Here are some you can get started for free, or paid versions. Thre are many more than I list here, but these are good starting places.
    • ChatGPT – the one that started it all. I highly recommend trying the paid version for at least a month to see the difference. Can generate text, images, code and more.
    • Perplexity.ai – uses the Google API and pulls in more real-time content from the Internet in the response, with citations. With the paid version you can also access other models such as Claude.
    • Claude – a ChatGPT competitor, but more private in that it doesn’t have access to the Internet for anything after it has been trained. Claude maker, Cohere, prides itself on its take on security.
    • Adobe Firefly – generate images in a variety of formats and styles. Adobe claims it has trained Firefly on its own content, and thus, its images are commercially ready for use.
  • Podcasts – a list of my favorite AI podcasts
  • Free Education Resources – Check out some of these free resources from top companies and institutions
  • People to Follow – if you use social media, here are a few people to follow and even turn notifications on

Every journey begins with a step. Just one step. Take yours today so you can be better informed about the changes that are coming your way with GenAI.

About Fred

Fred is the Vice President of Strategic Marketing at Bounteous, an end-to-end digital transformation consultancy. He is a marketer, technologist, husband, and passionate about the future of business with AI. According to Fred is his personal blog and all views are his own. Follow him on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

Read some of my other thoughts and perspectives. A Little Less Recent