AI & Literacy Gap: Google, Microsoft Concerns

The big names in technology have moved. But already last April, among the many executive orders, the White House had launched one to promote education on artificial intelligence (AI). An order addressed to all schools. Donald Trump went out of his way to invite the use and integration of AI in all subjects. And to start it right from nursery school. Similar initiatives have been taken in many Northern European countries. Despite doubts and questions, which the various technology watchdog groupsespecially in the States, have placed, the initiatives have not seen many obstacles on their necessity. If anything on how they were implemented. For too long, however, at least in our country, asking questions has had the effect of falling behind on concrete choices.

Transformations and complexity

It’s clear that we’re dealing with transformative technology — so to speak AI is like electricity, it’s not simply something that helps cut time and costs — is much more complex. The alarm was raised by Andrea Pignataro, the creator of Ion, who effectively warns: we are teaching how to make ourselves superfluous to AI. Precisely because we use it little consciously. We should put behind us the debates about how far ahead American or Chinese companies are in AI and resolve to use these tools as much as possible. With a simple objective: making sure to find weak points, constraints, possible uses and so on.

The risks

Risks such as those indicated by Pignataro must be avoided. Which means falling behind in AI literacy. And that is in theconscious use of this new technology. As we said at the beginning, large American companies have already moved forward. The New York Times reported how on AI literacy, Microsoft had already promised 4 billion dollars in investments, Google at least one billion.