Part 1: Is Literacy the Ultimate Human Super Power in the Twenty-First Century?

I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how it's going to begin.

— Neo | The Matrix

I recently read a provocative article, “The digital age’s reversion to pre-literate communication,” that concludes human intellectualism will be displaced by artificial general intelligence (AGI). The author, Andrey Mir, proposes that with each new literacy medium, from orality to writing, the Internet, social media, and now generative AI, we gain “new powers but disrupt previous sensory, cognitive, and social settings.” For example, with the emergence of writing, we became capable of sharing ideas across time and distance, expanding knowledge beyond what orality alone could accomplish. Writing also enabled us to develop intellectually through the process of critical reflection, awakening us to our existence within an infinite universe and to our shared humanity (Mir).

Centuries later, the disruption of the Internet and social media emerged, which Mir suggests led to a societal devaluation of writing and its introspective, reflective, and contemplative nature. According to Mir, the Internet and social media reintroduced a literacy akin to orality, which is socially immersed, often reactive, and always reflective of the audience’s interest in the current hot topic. Now, just a few decades later, generative AI is furthering society’s departure from critical literacy by amplifying the societal prioritization of efficiency and production over process. This prioritization potentially comes at the cost of human cognition and intellectualism. Citing media theorist Marshall McLuhan, Mir asserts that when “a medium or technology is pushed to its extremes or reaches its limits, its full potential, it tends to flip or reverse its characteristics or effects into something different, often opposite” (Mir). Mir argues that, if achieved, AGI will be the final disruption that pushes humanity to its limits, and in turn, a reversal will actualize. AGI will merge “with its user: us—or some new entity, if AI becomes a self-user,” completely displacing human intellect (Mir). 

If such a reversal is possible, why are we, as a society, so eager to offload our intellect, creativity, and ultimately, humanity to a technological entity? Is it because we aren’t considering what it means to be literate in the twenty-first century? Do we no longer recognize the humanity and power that we gain through literacy? Is it because we’ve become a society that is eager to offload hard work to someone or something else? Have we, as a pluralistic society, become so obsessed with winning some unnamed race for our own team that we no longer critically consider the repercussions of our actions? 

These are charged questions to be asking, but they are necessary to consider as we navigate the age of AI and beyond.  So, in this exposition, I will be doing just that. I will review past and current research about what it means to be critically literate, and how we can apply our critical literacy skills to navigate societal disruption. I will also reflect on where we go from here. I don't have the answers, but I do hope to contribute to the conversation happening among literacy's past, present, and future sages.

Literacy As Power_Works Cited.pdf

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