2021 · Study · 2018–2021
A new inequality: fluent access, and the lack of it
Adoption of generative systems was fast, and it was not evenly shared. We measured the split before we wrote the next syllabus.
Some groups gained daily, fluent use of writing and reasoning tools. Others met the same tools as a rumour, a banned website, or a feature hidden behind a subscription they did not have. The old exclusion had been about access to a computer. This one was about access to a capability that was already changing the pace of ordinary jobs and classrooms.
Schools and workplaces were adopting at different speeds even inside one organisation. A confident team pulled ahead. A neighbouring team was told not to touch the tool, and was then marked down for being slow. Policy and practice were not the same document.
The study pushed AI Foundations toward a practical candour: what the system is doing, in language a non-engineer can use; which answers only sound sure; which information must never be pasted into the box.
We do not describe this as a solved problem. We describe it as the reason the domain exists.