AI, Computer Literacy, and the New Divide(blog.vaxry.net)
blog.vaxry.net
AI, Computer Literacy, and the New Divide
https://blog.vaxry.net/articles/2026-aiIsABitDifferent
4 comments
"The divide is not between smart and stupid people, but between people who can inspect the systems around them and people who are forced to accept those systems on the basis of trust."
I mean... a smart person can not understand the system, true. But a sufficiently stupid person cannot understand the system. So, it is a divide between smart people who understand the system on the one hand and smart people who don't along with dumb people who can't on the other.
I mean... a smart person can not understand the system, true. But a sufficiently stupid person cannot understand the system. So, it is a divide between smart people who understand the system on the one hand and smart people who don't along with dumb people who can't on the other.
Are you commenting only for the sake of commenting?
This is not a very substantive addition; I'd say it's pedantic to say a divide that is "not [just] between smart and stupid people" does, in fact, divide smart and stupid people at SOME point.
Your other comment [1] is only slightly better, but I can't help but feel that you're presenting it as a contradiction where there is none. Yeah, us Americans are concerningly illiterate, but we're concerned in the first place because we all agree that we believe reading and writing is not a useless skill.
So ultimately, in both cases, the article is correct, and you're... also correct, but not actually adding anything to the conversation.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48042684
This is not a very substantive addition; I'd say it's pedantic to say a divide that is "not [just] between smart and stupid people" does, in fact, divide smart and stupid people at SOME point.
Your other comment [1] is only slightly better, but I can't help but feel that you're presenting it as a contradiction where there is none. Yeah, us Americans are concerningly illiterate, but we're concerned in the first place because we all agree that we believe reading and writing is not a useless skill.
So ultimately, in both cases, the article is correct, and you're... also correct, but not actually adding anything to the conversation.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48042684
"Back in the day, and I mean way back in the day, barely anyone could read or write. Nowadays, you can't find a single person who believes reading and writing is a useless skill."
One-fifth of US adults can’t read well enough to compare and contrast information, paraphrase, or make low-level inferences based on written text. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_States
One-fifth of US adults can’t read well enough to compare and contrast information, paraphrase, or make low-level inferences based on written text. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_States
What do we do about this? How do we teach people computer literacy? What would the lesson plan even look like? I'd really like to hear some suggestions from someone more experienced with computers than myself.
Would the final exam be installing Arch Linux? ... I mean, knowing the software stack of a computer in-and-out is kinda useful, perhaps, and the nitty-gritty of all the packages does that well... But the average person never has to worry about partitions, and there's nothing about an Arch install that tests your knowledge of browser cookies and adblockers.