#ai-literacy

#ai-literacy

A new survey found that nearly one in five high schoolers in the US - 19 percent - say that they or a friend have used AI to have a romantic relationship, an alarming figure that will surely raise new concerns over how the tech's adoption among kids and teenagers may be impacting their mental health. The findings were published in a new report from the Center for Democracy and Technology, which surveyed 1,000 high school students, 1,000 parents, and around 800 sixth through 12th grade public school teachers.

In 2025, the most valuable professionals are as fluent in connection as they are in code. The digital world has moved beyond "learn to code" into an era where adaptability and communication define long-term success. Across every industry, technology is reshaping how work gets done. But while tools evolve, the core differentiator remains the same: people who can harness digital systems and human insight together. Here are seven digital skills that will future-proof your career in 2025 and beyond.

Artificial Intelligence isn't a trend anymore. It's a turning point. Whether you're building apps, analyzing data, or designing user experiences, AI is now a daily companion in modern tech work. The question is no longer if you'll use AI, but how skillfully you'll use it. That's why Treehouse is integrating AI learning content across all of our Techdegrees-learn AI in our online bootcamp, the Full Stack JavaScript Techdegree.

I think the mindset shift is probably the most exciting thing because my guess is that the future of work belongs not anymore to the people that have the fanciest degrees or went to the best colleges, but to the people who are adaptable, forward thinking, ready to learn, and ready to embrace these tools. It really kind of opens up the playing field in a way that I think we've never seen before.

Artificial intelligence is transforming not only the jobs people hold, but also the skills they rely on to do them. New data from LinkedIn shows that 85 percent of U.S. professionals could see at least a quarter of their skills affected by AI. In other words, a significant portion of workers' expertise may need to evolve to keep pace. As a reflection of this shift, the most in-demand skill over the past year, unsurprisingly, has been AI literacy.

Agency is what keeps us from running on cognitive autopilot. Artificial intelligence now offers to do much of that work for us. With a single prompt, we can receive elegant summaries and polished solutions that are so smooth and immediate that they can (and often do) lull us into submission. If we aren't careful, we risk becoming passengers in our own intellectual journey, letting the machine set the course.

They grew up with algorithms and screens mediating their social interactions, dating relationships, and now their learning. And that's why they desperately need to learn how to be human. The most alarming pattern I've researched and observed isn't AI dependency. It's the parroting effect. AI systems are trained on statistical pattern matching, serving up widely represented viewpoints that harbor implicit bias. Without explicit instructions, they default to whatever keeps users engaged - just like social media algorithms that have already polarized our society.

Artificial intelligence is a powerful tool that relies on human input, making prompt engineering essential for maximizing its effectiveness and reshaping work dynamics.