Why AI increases the importance of literacy and critical thinking skills

By Katie Stafford, Deputy Principal: Hackney Campus at New City College and Research Further College

The 2006 Leitch Report, Prosperity for All in the Global Economy, highlighted the growing importance of literacy and numeracy skills to support individuals in adapting successfully to technological and social change. Leitch warned that, in the future, millions of adults who lacked basic literacy and numeracy skills would be placed at risk of exclusion from employment opportunities and have more limited opportunities for social mobility. Twenty years on, I have reflected upon how AI reflects the type of technological advancement that the Leitch Report predicted and how it is reshaping the everyday ways in which we communicate.

AI is becoming increasingly used for routine tasks such as writing emails and creating documents to support productivity. AI also helps people overcome skills gaps and increase confidence in communication. Free and easy access to Open AI applications mean that tasks that once required significant time and effort are now done with a few keystrokes and the push of a button.

As an English teacher and PhD researcher, I am naturally more critical in the use of language than many, and more keenly aware of its impact upon the reader. The recent examples that I have seen show the continuing importance of strong literacy skills to enable individuals to critically review the outputs of AI. For example, I have read emails which, whilst cogent and appropriate, are clearly written by AI. They are relatively easy to spot through their highly formalised language and structural features. Whilst they give the appearance of being professional, they lack authenticity and therefore immediate credibility with the reader. I know of another person who received an AI document to only find that in error, the sender had forgotten to delete the prompt. I have also found that AI used to synthesise important documents with closer scrutiny missed important details, nuances and was full of contradictions. In another example, AI was used to summarise and synthesise a document but produced a five-page response that failed to extract the essential information. Its format was also entirely useless in summarizing the findings in a simple to follow way.

Clearly, these examples demonstrate the new challenges that reinforce the importance of literacy and critical thinking skills when using AI. AI systems do not “understand” information in the same way humans do. AI is unable to produce results that are fully contextualised and refined. The results can therefore lack nuance or be inaccurate, biased, or misleading. AI presentations of text are also overly confident in their use of language and are so convincing in tone that users feel that the document is high quality and persuasive, yet on closer inspection offer little of substance or support. Errors like the ones identified show that AI users cannot simply accept AI-generated content as automatically reliable. AI prompts that are specific and context-rich can help overcome these challenges. However, developing the iterative steps needed to make high-quality documents require high levels of literacy skills; skills which enable the user to reflect the audience and purpose whilst considering nuances of style, tone and structure to achieve the desired effect upon the reader.

In an age of AI, literacy skills are therefore becoming the key skill set. Literacy skills are essential in this process because students need to also read critically, spot errors and evaluate text. They need to consider subtext, alongside the inferred nuance and agenda of both the creator and receiver of the text. Without these abilities, there is a danger that individuals will become passive consumers of information rather than independent thinkers capable of making informed decisions. Put simply, if we do not need to actively create a document, how actively have we considered the ideas and messages the document contains?

A learner with strong literacy and critical thinking skills is more likely to evaluate the outputs of AI to ensure that every document is crafted to meet a particular goal and effect upon the reader. In work and everyday life students need to be able to evaluate AI outputs carefully before applying them to make decisions or take advice. Human judgement therefore remains essential. AI education should not focus solely on achieving productivity but also on developing the literacy skills that technology cannot fully replace.

Artificial intelligence offers significant benefits by reducing time spent on repetitive tasks and improving productivity. However, these advantages also increase the need for strong critical thinking and literacy skills to evaluate AI outputs effectively. The future population will require not only technological competence but also the ability to think independently, question information, and make informed judgements. In this way, human skills continue to underpin personal success in an increasingly AI-driven society. The Leitch Report was a teleport into the future and still reminds us that literacy skills are still highly relevant and most important in the era of AI.