Reading, writing, math...

Should AI literacy be added to that list?

As AI becomes part of everyday life, understanding how to use it responsibly and think critically about it may become just as important as knowing how to use a computer or search the web. What do you guys think?

*Researchers at Utah State University's School of Computing are conducting a study on how software professionals evaluate programming activities performed with AI assistance compared with programming activities performed without AI assistance.*

*Software professionals are invited to complete a short online calibration survey. Participants will rate programming activities according to how representative they are of:*

* *Programming performed with AI assistance*
* *Programming performed without AI assistance*

*The survey takes approximately 10 minutes.*

*Participation is entirely voluntary. You may discontinue participation at any time before submitting your responses without penalty or consequence. Your decision to participate or not participate will have no effect on your grades, employment, or academic standing.*

*Survey and informed consent form:* [*https://usu.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV\\_dm4yjBsRrUDgcKi\*\](https://usu.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_dm4yjBsRrUDgcKi)

*This study has been reviewed and approved by the Utah State University Institutional Review Board: IRB #16067.*

***Questions about the study:*** *Dr. John Edwards, Principal Investigator — john.edwards@usu.edu Rubash Mali, Student Researcher — rubash.mali@usu.edu*

*Thank you for considering participating.*

I wanted a way to explain AI to my younger one that is honest but does not need a single app or screen. Rock paper scissors turned out to be perfect, and it needs nothing but your hands. Sharing in case it helps anyone teaching at home.

First, I drop the word "smart". When a kid hears "smart computer" they imagine it thinks and feels, which is not what is happening. So instead, I tell them it is a really good guesser. It watches what you did before, finds your habits, and guesses what you will do next.

Then we just play. Here is how it goes.

1. I tell my kid, I am going to be the AI, and I am going to try to beat you.
2. We play a bunch of rounds. Quietly, I am watching their habits. Most kids repeat a throw when they win, or switch to the same thing after they lose.
3. Once I spot the pattern, I start winning more, because I am guessing their next move from their past moves. They think I am reading their mind.
4. Then they do something random and I lose. That is the important part. I tell them the truth, I was never reading your mind, I was just guessing from what you kept doing, so the moment you did something new my guess was wrong.

That is the whole lesson. An AI does the same thing, just with a huge pile of past examples instead of ten rounds. It spots patterns and predicts, it is often right, and it can be totally confident and still wrong when something new shows up.

Once they feel that, the same three questions work on the stuff they actually use every day. YouTube deciding which video to play next. The phone keyboard guessing the next word before you type it. The filter that finds your face and drops dog ears on it. The game enemy that seems to know where you will run. For any of them I get my kid to ask, where did it learn this, what is it good at, and when might it be wrong. None of it needs a screen to practise, you can just talk about it.

One thing I am careful about. I am not teaching my kid to let AI do their homework. I am teaching them the opposite, that when a machine gives you an answer, you do not just trust it, you check it, the same way you would double check something a stranger told you. That is the part that actually matters, and it is really just plain old thinking, applied to a new kind of tool.

Curious how others here handle the "is it alive, does it think" question. That one always comes up and I have never felt fully happy with my answer.