2018 · Briefing · 2018–2021
AI Fluency, and what we refused to pretend
The public arrival of capable machine-learning systems forced a third domain. The aim was never a nation of machine-learning engineers.
In 2018 we launched AI Fluency with a boundary we have kept. People need to understand what these systems can and cannot do, recognise limitation and bias, use them productively, and take part in the decisions that govern them. They do not need to train a model in order to be qualified to have that understanding.
The curricula covered conceptual foundations, prompt literacy, evaluation of outputs, privacy and security, and the regulatory landscape as it actually meets a workplace. The certificates mirrored the earlier domains: AI Foundations, AI Practitioner, and AI Fluency (Advanced).
We were enthusiastic about the subject and severe about the marketing around it. A fluent paragraph is not evidence. A tool that has not seen the file cannot know the file. The human decision stays on the certificate because that is the part a professional is paid for.
Candidates who wanted to become engineers were wished well and pointed elsewhere. ENEBA’s job is the literate public, the careful office, and the educator who has to update practice at speed.