The New Literacy: Learning to Recognize Influence

Education in the Age of Intelligent Systems — Part II

Editor’s Note:
This essay is Part II in the series “Education in the Age of Intelligent Systems.” Essay #1 explored how educational institutions are rapidly adapting to the emergence of intelligent systems and AI-driven technologies. This second essay shifts the focus from institutions to individuals — and asks a more personal question: What kind of awareness will students need to develop while living inside intelligent systems capable of shaping attention, perception, emotion, and decision-making itself?

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Last week, while reflecting on a webinar discussion hosted through William & Mary, I found myself thinking less about artificial intelligence as a technological tool and more about the environment intelligent systems are quietly creating around us.

Much of the conversation centered on how schools and universities might integrate AI into learning environments. That discussion is important and unavoidable. Intelligent systems are rapidly becoming embedded into modern life, and students will almost certainly need to learn how to work alongside them.

But underneath the broader conversation, another question lingered in my mind.

What happens when intelligent systems are not merely helping students access information, but are increasingly shaping how students perceive, react, believe, and make decisions?

One comment from the dean especially stayed with me. She emphasized that students must learn to recognize when AI is being used to persuade and influence human perception and decision-making.

That word — recognize — may ultimately become one of the defining educational challenges of our time.

From Information Environments to Influence Environments

For much of modern history, education focused on helping students gain access to information.

Books were scarce. Libraries were limited. Expertise was concentrated. Information itself carried enormous value because it was difficult to obtain.

Today, information is abundant.

In many cases, it is overwhelmingly abundant.

But abundance creates a different challenge entirely.

Students are no longer growing up inside simple information environments. They are growing up inside intelligent influence environments.

Modern systems do not merely deliver information. Increasingly, they:

• personalize content,
• optimize engagement,
• predict behavior,
• amplify emotional responses,
• and continuously adapt to human interaction.

Unlike older media systems, these environments are dynamic. They learn from behavior and respond in real time.

Earlier generations worried about hidden messages embedded in advertisements. Books like Subliminal Seduction explored the fear that subtle imagery or unconscious messaging might influence consumer behavior beneath conscious awareness.

But those systems were static.

Today’s intelligent systems are adaptive.

That distinction matters enormously.

The challenge facing education may no longer simply be helping students find information. The challenge may increasingly involve helping them recognize when information systems are shaping attention, emotion, perception, and behavior itself.

Recognition Begins With Looking

There is a brief exchange in the first Sherlock Holmes film that I have thought about many times while reflecting on these ideas.

Dr. Watson attempts to attack Lord Blackwood when Sherlock Holmes suddenly stops him and points out an almost invisible glass dagger lying directly in front of them.

Watson asks:

“How did you see that?”

Sherlock replies:

“Because I was looking for it.”

That exchange captures something deeply important about education.

Recognition begins with awareness that something is there to be recognized.

Most students today are not being taught to actively look for:

• persuasive architectures,
• engagement optimization,
• algorithmic influence,
• emotional manipulation,
• or systems intentionally designed to shape behavior.

As a result, many forms of influence remain nearly invisible.

Not because students lack intelligence.

But because they have not yet been trained to see the system itself.

The New Literacy

Traditional literacy focused on reading and writing.

Digital literacy expanded that idea into navigating information online.

But the emerging challenge of education may require something even broader:
a form of cognitive literacy grounded in awareness and recognition.

Perhaps schools will increasingly need to help students develop:

• attentional awareness,
• reflective pause,
• emotional recognition,
• systems thinking,
• persuasive literacy,
• and intellectual independence.

Not as side topics.

But as essential skills for modern citizenship.

This is not an argument against artificial intelligence. In many ways, AI as a tool already has broad social acceptance. The deeper concern involves how intelligent systems are used and who is using them to influence human behavior, shape perception, or manipulate decision-making.

The issue is not simply that intelligent systems exist.

The issue is that many modern systems are designed not merely to inform human beings, but to influence them.

That distinction changes education entirely.

Recognition as a Form of Human Agency

One of the most important ideas I continue to return to, is that recognition itself is a form of agency.

To recognize influence is not the same as escaping it completely. Human beings will always live within systems that shape behavior and perception in countless visible and invisible ways.

But recognition creates the possibility of pause.

The possibility of reflection.

The possibility of asking:

• Why am I reacting this way?
• Why was this shown to me?
• What incentives are shaping this environment?
• Is this informing me — or steering me?

Those questions may become increasingly important in an age where intelligent systems are capable of adapting to human psychology at enormous scale.

Perhaps the future role of education will not simply involve preparing students to use intelligent systems effectively.

Perhaps it will involve helping them remain intellectually and emotionally autonomous while living inside them.

Next Week: Part III –
The End of Information Scarcity

For generations, education systems were built around the assumption that information was scarce and difficult to access. Schools became institutions designed to distribute knowledge efficiently because knowledge itself was limited.

But intelligent systems are rapidly changing that reality.

If information is no longer scarce, then what becomes valuable instead?

In the next essay, The End of Information Scarcity, I will explore how the collapse of informational scarcity may fundamentally reshape the purpose of education itself — and why judgment, discernment, and meaning-making may become more important than memorization alone.