When Mediocre Education Meets Artificial Intelligence

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And you will find yourself reacting with "that's not what I meant" or "Stupid AI!"

All kinds of training course offers on "AI for everyday people" are popping up all over the Internet. But here's the problem: Many of the people who sign up for those courses are either functionally illiterate or semi-literate.

One of the critical keys to using AI is the user's ability to form grammatically-correct questions. I liken an AI inquiry to a spreadsheet formula. If all you are capable of doing is forming a simple spreadsheet formula, you aren't nearly as productive as someone who can form a complex formula. If you are not capable of forming a complex question using impeccable grammar, you are going to get in return a bunch of "I don't understand" or "Did you mean..." or "I cannot return an answer because..." results. 

I remember sometime back in the 1980's or '90's reading an article about a new technology whose inventors were sure it was going to storm the world. That is exactly what happened, but not until many years later when computer manufacturers decided to alter their designs to accommodate USB ports. Similarly, AI proponents are going all in to spend billions on programming and computing infrastructure to make AI available to all, in every aspect of our lives. Unfortunately, a good 1/2 of the populace (of the United States, I sadly must add) are too under-educated to take full advantage of AI. 

We need to spend billions on eradicating illiteracy before we spend trillions on AI

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