Introductory · Text-based, self-paced · Open access
AI Literacy
Understand how AI models work, use them well in your own work, and judge the arguments about them.
3 courses 10 modules 30 lessons 40h 4m of material
About this program
AI assistants now draft, summarize, and advise for millions of people, and most of us use them without knowing what is happening behind the answers. This program starts there. It explains, in words and with no math or code, how a language model learns from text, how a trained model becomes an assistant, and why fluent answers can still be wrong.
From there it turns to your own use: testing a model on the tasks you care about, checking what it tells you, and setting rules for disclosure, privacy, and dependence. It closes with the arguments that fill the news, from alignment and safety to jobs, copyright, and regulation, each put in the form its strongest advocates would accept. Each course ends with a project of your own: explaining one model answer, writing and testing an AI-use protocol, and mapping a live controversy.
What you will be able to do
- Explain how a language model learns from text, becomes an assistant, and produces fluent errors
- Test a model on your own tasks and verify the claims, sources, and citations in what it gives you
- Use AI for writing, analysis, and delegated work with rules for disclosure, privacy, and dependence that keep your judgment in charge
- Weigh the competing claims about AI safety, work, information, creative rights, and governance, and state the strongest case on each side
How to progress through a program
Every lesson has the same shape, so you can settle into it and spend your attention on the material.
- A motivating readingWhy the question matters, in three minutes.
- Four concept readingsThe ideas themselves, one at a time.
- A guided walkthroughOne worked case, followed step by step.
- A Guided ConversationA structured conversation you run in your own AI account.
- An optional activity or journal entryA short hands-on task or writing prompt, done in your own notes.
- A knowledge checkFive questions, ungraded, retry as often as you like.
The last lesson of each module adds a graded quiz with a target score of 80 percent.
Courses
- Course 1 How LLMs Work This course explains what is happening when an AI model answers you. You'll follow the path from machine learning basics to the training of large language models, then to the steps that turn a…
- Course 2 Using AI Ethically and Productively This course is about your own use of AI. You'll learn to test a model on the tasks you care about, check what it tells you, and notice when it is flattering you or reflecting a bias. You'll build…
- Course 3 AI Concerns and Controversies This course brings you into the arguments about AI that fill the news. You'll study the alignment problem and the evidence on AI safety, then the forecasts that range from catastrophe to abundance to…
Who this is for
Anyone who can hold a conversation with an AI chatbot and wants to understand, use, and judge these tools. No technical or policy background is assumed.
Help us vet this program
You are reading it closely anyway. If something looks wrong, please tell us to help improve the program.
- Check claims against the linked sources. Every reading names where its ideas come from. If a passage misstates a source, or attributes something to the wrong thinker, say so and point to the item.
- Report broken or wrong links. Free editions move and paywalls change. A dead link is worth reporting even when the text around it is fine.
- Flag quiz questions that do not hold up. An answer you can defend that is marked wrong, an option with no good answer, or feedback that misses the point.
- Suggest improvements. A passage that reads as muddled, an example that would land better, a primary text we should have pointed you to.