Last year, WAO worked with the Responsible Innovation Centre for Public Media Futures, based in BBC R&D. Our collaboration was around Supporting AI Literacies for Young Adults Aged 14-19, creating a values-based, practical framework for public service media organisations.

Due to various delays, including a moratorium during the BBC's charter renewal, it was published just before Easter – despite the date on the front of the report!

Download

You can download the report either directly from the BBC or from the WAO Archive below:

Executive Summary

This research report outlines the role public service media organisations could play in AI literacy provision for young adults. It presents an AI Literacies framework for public service media (PSM) organisations. Developed through collaboration between the Responsible Innovation Centre (RIC), Bridging Responsible AI Divides (BRAID) programme, and We Are Open Co-op (WAO), the framework is designed to cover critical gaps in current provision and equip young people with the understanding and skills they need to navigate an AI-mediated world.

The research involved a landscape review, including analysis of 40 AI Literacy frameworks, 35 expert interviews and survey data. We find that existing resources prioritise technical and functional skills over critical evaluation and that there are systemic shortcomings in areas such as equity and teacher support. We also highlight a risk that AI literacy becomes disconnected from other types of literacy (digital literacy, information literacy and media literacy), to which it relates and needs to be connected.

The report outlines that PSM have a key role to play in addressing a gap between technical and functional skills, and critical skills through creative learning interventions that blend these elements. Public service media are well placed to quickly respond to emerging issues and youth culture, moving at a faster pace than educational institutions. Additionally, there is a need for impartial resources as current commercial provision skews towards how to use (generative) AI tools.

Based on our landscape review and gap analysis we present an AI literacies framework for public service media organisations. The framework is grounded in key values and helps structure thinking about what is important for AI literacy initiatives to focus on, as well as future proofing AI literacy interventions so they can withstand social and technological changes.

Our framework has six key elements:

- Understanding AI Systems and their Contexts
- Practical and Responsible Use of AI Tools
- Creativity, Agency, and Participation
- Building Confidence, Adaptability, and Lifelong Learning
- Critical Evaluation of AI Outputs and Systems
- Ethical, Societal, and Environmental Awareness

We also present an accompanying guide for assessing and evaluating these six key elements of AI literacies.

Previous project posts

Our previous posts on this project can be found below:

Illustrations

The original images we produced for the report might be useful to you, and so they are available here (click to enlarge):

As it didn't fit with their house style, the RIC decided not to include the graphics that our long-time collaborator, and former WAO member, Bryan Mathers. We think they're great!

You're free to use the following under a CC BY-ND license (click to enlarge):

Illustrations created by Visual Thinkery

What's next?

There's plenty to do around AI literacies, especially given it's been almost a year since we worked on this!

WAO is closing, but Doug will still be working in this area through Dynamic Skillset. He also intends to keep the website AILiteracy.fyi after the co-op closes.