Why Does Data Literacy Matter

AI will do it all

You may be wondering why on earth, in the age of AI, would anyone need to worry about data literacy? Surely, (and don’t call me Shirley), you can just ask any of Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT etc. to simply give you the answers you need in a matter of seconds.

AI is data

Well, first up, what we’re calling AI today is simply data and patterns under the hood. And the more you understand how that all works, the better you’ll be able to understand when it works well, when it doesn't and why it does all the weird stuff you keep hearing about. You’ll also be able to tell just how much of the marketing hype is… well just hype (but more on that in another blog). This understanding helps put the power back in your hands and perhaps save you from a nasty shock.

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

Unfortunately, we live in a world where this phrase seems truer by the day. It’s not the numbers that are the issue, it’s the spin, it's what gets left out, it's the bias left unchecked that’s the problem - all of these can completely change the story. And it doesn’t matter where the information has come from, there is always the chance the numbers chosen have been done so to shape a particular message and at the same time mimimise (or hide!) what they don’t want you to see. Even when we’re prompting AI, we can (and often without us even realising it) have own biases influence the answers we get.

Critical evaluation

Data literacy isn’t about doing all the calculations or creating models yourself - although its lots of fun if you want to😊. It’s really about having enough understanding of data to look at what's in front of you and to critically evaluate it; to think about why certain measures have been used and what their limitations are. To ask yourself what is missing and why and if that would change the story. This helps us to be confident in our decisions rather than being bamboozled by a lot of technical speak. 

Challenge

So, next time you see a statistic in a post, headline or presentation take a moment and ask yourself if you truly have enough to make a decision? If not, have a think about what extra information you’d need that would help.