Why Literacy Alone Won't Solve Canada's AI Problem

This week, the Government of Canada made a major announcement in my hometown of Edmonton. In partnership with Amii (Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute), they have launched a National AI Literacy Initiative.

In an unexpectedly timely recent article, I wondered, “Why don’t Canadians use AI?” We know that Canada has an AI adoption gap. We’ve lagged behind almost every developed nation in our AI literacy, and we have less trust in AI than many other countries.

Why is this? Folks have fears about the change AI is already making in the workplace. As those fears are overcome, there is a steep learning curve that is challenging for individuals and expensive for businesses.

That’s why this new program intrigues me. I believe education is the right bet when technical disruption happens. It’s a way to flatten the learning curve of a new technology by removing barriers to access. This program promises free AI education for Canadians, with specific content for educators and students. And it has a real chance to succeed.

Amii has a proven model and a history of success in AI training. I trust the people there and believe in them. Now, more Canadians will benefit from this training. But there will be challenges. Training for the general public needs to be more than just available. It needs to be current and relevant to learners.

This program is a big step toward solving one of the barriers to AI adoption: education. But education is only the beginning. I have seen over and over again that for people to adopt AI, they need to do more than learn about it. They need to use it to do something actually useful for them. A spreadsheet, a new recipe, a fitness routine. Something uniquely valuable to them that AI helped them get to.

Finding value in a tool is what builds trust in that tool. Moving from a moment of delight, to nice-to-have, to want-to-have, to essential for the next task.

At this point, most of us know AI exists. Few of us know how to use it. Fewer value it. And fewer still can imagine its innovative potential. This program is an investment in the funnel. More Canadians will know about AI. How can we make sure that people don’t get stuck in the education phase? How can we grow the number of people who value AI and actually use it?

The most influential moment of AI adoption was when ChatGPT came online (1M users in 5 days, 100M in 2 months). That adoption curve indicates that people are hungry for an interface that they can interact with.

The success of a program like this hinges on the “next step.” On people not just learning about AI, but actually using it outside of the classroom. I’m optimistic that this investment in education can lead to more people taking that next step.

As a researcher in this field, I am optimistic about education. I believe, and am now supported by government policy, that AI is the single biggest driver of innovation and essential to the future relevance of our country. Simply put, it is the defining technology of my lifetime. Like television before it, our grandchildren will find it hard to imagine how we lived in a time before AI.

So, I’ve signed up for the course. And I suggest you do too. This is the time to learn. But more importantly, it’s the time to discover what you value in this technology. That’s where the real potential lies.