Universities Could Strengthen Democracy by Promoting AI Literacy Among Students

Universities could bolster democracy by fostering students' AI literacy

The fears are familiar: Artificial intelligence is going to eat our jobs, make our students weak and lazy and possibly destroy democracy for good measure. As AI has become more accessible to the public, it's become closely (and probably not unreasonably) associated with academic misconduct, especially plagiarism and other forms of cheating. For some time now, research has been suggesting that the future of AI and post-secondary education would be deeply intertwined. What if, though, teaching students to use AI properly -- ethically, responsibly and critically -- could help make them better, more engaged citizens? Fuelling debate Since its public release in late 2022, ChatGPT, one of the most commonly used generative AI (GenAI) models in the world, has sparked furious academic debate. But the either/or argument that it will kill us or make us stronger is a false dichotomy. As a long-time post-secondary educator, public servant and current doctoral student examining education and civic literacy, I am interested in the potential for AI to help us build a healthier, more inclusive and more robust democracy by creating new ways to engage our critical thinking skills across disciplines. I researched this article, in part, by using Scite.ai, a research tool to which I was introduced by Sarah Eaton, a member of my doctoral supervisory committee whose research focuses on academic ethics in higher education. Eaton has examined issues around student misconduct, and has also argued that the connection between civic and digital literacy, including the use of AI in post-secondary education, is strong and growing. Universities and civic literacy Civic literacy is about fostering students' potential to become active, engaged students in the pursuit of peaceful social change. Somewhere along the way, it seems, universities shied away from that part of their institutional role. Through western modernity, universities came to occupy roles as endowers of knowledge while building on more ancient expectations that education carried social obligations, often construed as a form of "noblesse oblige." Decolonial, democratic and educational criticism rightly underscores the importance of recognizing varied forms of knowledge existing throughout society and in learners' own lives, and how students and diverse disciplines collaborate to construct knowledge. Through this lens, as some scholars have argued, universities have become spaces to foster forms of civic literacy. Educating for democracy The role of colleges and universities in fostering civic literacy, sometimes known as educating for democracy, feeds their contribution to fostering democratic societies. Universities frequently point to this role proudly, speaking of it in broad, glowing terms without offering a lot of specifics. While universities and colleges often talk broadly about creating learning spaces conducive to democratic engagement and good citizenship, principles associated with democracy have tended to be concentrated in a relatively small number of academic disciplines, such as humanities, social and political sciences. The STEM disciplines don't always give them the same attention. The need for digital and AI literacy, across disciplines, raises rich possibilities around fostering the teaching and learning of democratic or civic dispositions. This refers to creating students who become voting citizens, who have the capacity to make informed political decisions about the leaders who represent them or to assess the validity of what those leaders present. Read more: AI is making elections weird: Lessons from a simulated war-game exercise The path to using AI to foster civic literacy requires the reinforcement of critical thinking, which encourages learners to challenge assumptions and cultivate independent thought. Becoming critical, informed citizens Many of us are familiar with concerns that AI doesn't probe deeply; it can't assess credibility as a human might; it's typically working from dated information, having been trained on older, static data sets; it demonstrates bias and discrimination; and sometimes, it can outright hallucinate, making up facts that have no basis in reality. There's a bit of a void at the moment in terms of institutional AI policies on the use or misuse of AI and how everyone understands them, which is understandable, given how new the technology is. This is where the connection between AI and civic literacy is especially strong: the same critical thinking skills we teach our students in literature, science or any other discipline can be applied to when explaining AI policy or transparently examining AI outputs in classes related to curricula and assignments. By teaching students to question outputs and assess their validity, accuracy and trustworthiness, we can help them enhance the very skills they'll ultimately need to become active, informed citizens. They might then stand a better chance of becoming more critical citizens, employing their skills to resolve disputes and assess everything from the news they consume to promises made by political leaders. It can also help develop the skills to combat political polarization and misinformation. True digital literacy includes not only determining in what contexts it could be appropriate to use AI but also how to effectively use AI-powered tools. Need for prudence University educators have to be prudent in our approach, though. So-called "cognitive offloading" -- trusting machines to do our reasoning, thinking and memory work for us -- is a genuine risk. This risk makes the argument for using AI to teach critical thinking even more compelling. Human analysis of the output and its credibility is essential. In a presentation at the University of Calgary in March 2025, Eaton noted: "If anything, problems facing students, educators and citizens of the world may be even more complex in the future than they are today ... These next-generation citizens will be navigating and leading changes we have not yet even imagined." What I am seeing in my research is that a broadening of the discussion to look at AI's potential to foster civic literacy -- as Eaton suggests -- may be crucial to the future of democracy.

Universities could bolster democracy by fostering students' AI literacy

The fears are familiar: Artificial intelligence is going to eat our jobs, make our students weak and lazy and possibly destroy democracy for good measure. As AI has become more accessible to the public, it's become closely (and probably not unreasonably) associated with academic misconduct, especially plagiarism and other forms of cheating. For some time now, research has been suggesting that the future of AI and post-secondary education would be deeply intertwined. What if, though, teaching students to use AI properly -- ethically, responsibly and critically -- could help make them better, more engaged citizens? Fueling debate Since its public release in late 2022, ChatGPT, one of the most commonly used generative AI (GenAI) models in the world, has sparked furious academic debate. But the either/or argument that it will kill us or make us stronger is a false dichotomy. As a long-time post-secondary educator, public servant and current doctoral student examining education and civic literacy, I am interested in the potential for AI to help us build a healthier, more inclusive and more robust democracy by creating new ways to engage our critical thinking skills across disciplines. I researched this article, in part, by using Scite.ai, a research tool to which I was introduced by Sarah Eaton, a member of my doctoral supervisory committee whose research focuses on academic ethics in higher education. Eaton has examined issues around student misconduct, and has also argued that the connection between civic and digital literacy, including the use of AI in post-secondary education, is strong and growing. Universities and civic literacy Civic literacy is about fostering students' potential to become active, engaged students in the pursuit of peaceful social change. Somewhere along the way, it seems, universities shied away from that part of their institutional role. Through western modernity, universities came to occupy roles as endowers of knowledge while building on more ancient expectations that education carried social obligations, often construed as a form of "noblesse oblige." Decolonial, democratic and educational criticism rightly underscores the importance of recognizing varied forms of knowledge existing throughout society and in learners' own lives, and how students and diverse disciplines collaborate to construct knowledge. Through this lens, as some scholars have argued, universities have become spaces to foster forms of civic literacy. Educating for democracy The role of colleges and universities in fostering civic literacy, sometimes known as educating for democracy, feeds their contribution to fostering democratic societies. Universities frequently point to this role proudly, speaking of it in broad, glowing terms without offering a lot of specifics. While universities and colleges often talk broadly about creating learning spaces conducive to democratic engagement and good citizenship, principles associated with democracy have tended to be concentrated in a relatively small number of academic disciplines, such as humanities, social and political sciences. The STEM disciplines don't always give them the same attention. The need for digital and AI literacy, across disciplines, raises rich possibilities around fostering the teaching and learning of democratic or civic dispositions. This refers to creating students who become voting citizens, who have the capacity to make informed political decisions about the leaders who represent them or to assess the validity of what those leaders present. The path to using AI to foster civic literacy requires the reinforcement of critical thinking, which encourages learners to challenge assumptions and cultivate independent thought. Becoming critical, informed citizens Many of us are familiar with concerns that AI doesn't probe deeply; it can't assess credibility as a human might; it's typically working from dated information, having been trained on older, static data sets; it demonstrates bias and discrimination; and sometimes, it can outright hallucinate, making up facts that have no basis in reality. There's a bit of a void at the moment in terms of institutional AI policies on the use or misuse of AI and how everyone understands them, which is understandable, given how new the technology is. This is where the connection between AI and civic literacy is especially strong: the same critical thinking skills we teach our students in literature, science or any other discipline can be applied to when explaining AI policy or transparently examining AI outputs in classes related to curricula and assignments. By teaching students to question outputs and assess their validity, accuracy and trustworthiness, we can help them enhance the very skills they'll ultimately need to become active, informed citizens. They might then stand a better chance of becoming more critical citizens, employing their skills to resolve disputes and assess everything from the news they consume to promises made by political leaders. It can also help develop the skills to combat political polarization and misinformation. True digital literacy includes not only determining in what contexts it could be appropriate to use AI but also how to effectively use AI-powered tools. Need for prudence University educators have to be prudent in our approach, though. So-called "cognitive offloading" -- trusting machines to do our reasoning, thinking and memory work for us -- is a genuine risk. This risk makes the argument for using AI to teach critical thinking even more compelling. Human analysis of the output and its credibility is essential. In a presentation at the University of Calgary in March 2025, Eaton noted, "If anything, problems facing students, educators and citizens of the world may be even more complex in the future than they are today ... These next-generation citizens will be navigating and leading changes we have not yet even imagined." What I am seeing in my research is that a broadening of the discussion to look at AI's potential to foster civic literacy -- as Eaton suggests -- may be crucial to the future of democracy. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.