I think prompt literacy is important, but first you must have judgment literacy. Critical thinking before using AI is just as important as it is while using it.
AI literacy is not prompt literacy. It's *judgment literacy*. One thing we don't talk about enough: Education around AI can't just mean teaching people HOW to use it. It has to mean teaching people when NOT to use it. And WHY. (Shouty-caps for emphasis.) That distinction matters not just for people like us—marketers and creators. But for educators, managers, parents, leaders... anyone shaping how other people think, work, learn, decide, and create. To me the real skill worth honing isn't prompt fluency or knowing how to boss around an AI agent. The real skill is judgment. Knowing when AI helps. Knowing when it shortcuts the very struggle that teaches us something. Knowing when speed is useful... and when it actually erodes agency, creativity, trust, understanding. It's doing things the long, hard, human-fumbling-in-the-dark way when there's value in that hard way. It's choosing the long road in a shortcut world when the process of the work is the joy of the work. So why do we keep teaching people how to use AI—without ever teaching them when not to? P.S. Em dashes ALL MINE MINE MINE.
