It's important to factor in just how many US adults are basically illiterate nowadays.

As of 2023, 27% of American working-age adults were at a PIAAC Literacy Level of 1 or below, out of a total of 5 levels. This has gotten drastically worse in the past 10 years as, in 2013, Level 1 and below was only 17%.

Full scores for 2023 are: % Level 1 or below: 27% Level 2: 29% Level 3: 31% Level 4/5: 13%

For reference, Level 1 means someone can't really handle a full page of text, and can sort of handle simple 1-page web pages. Level 2 is the point where someone can start to handle a few pages of straightforward text, but still nothing particularly complicated.

(Both of those descriptions undersell just how bad it really is, but I'll leave it at that, for the sake of brevity.)

People that aren't using AI at all often aren't using it because they effectively can't. On a fundamental level.

Source: https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/2023/national_results.asp

those levels weren't what I was expecting.

https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/piaac/measure.asp?section=1&sub_...

I'm curious as to how I would score, I would definitely count myself as "literate" but I wonder how well I'd do on the level 4/5 tasks and if they cross over into more general memory, intelligence, and study habit metrics that even a normally "literate" person would not do well at.

Though given those descriptions I can't help thinking those would be great tests for AI. I'd love to see the proficiency scores for various models.

EDIT: Ok I just needed to scroll further, they have sample items in the last section up to level 4 and even at level 4 the question seemed trivial.

The most wordy one is the Q Drum article (which by the way Q drum is a real thing, kinda neat idea) and there's literally only two basic criticisms (flat land and expense) and if you had any idea what the life straw is you can probably construe what the similar criticism in the email is going to be without even looking.

Based on the scores and the proficiency description I assumed they were actually targeting some sort of normal distribution and levels 4/5 would be genuinely difficult explaining the scores. I'm now much more sad that the scores are so low.

At least I got a laugh at how they refer to each test item as "the stimulus" which has such a sterile/clinical flavor to it.

"Response rates for this data collection were relatively low, both for the United States and for several other participating countries. There is evidence that procedures implemented to reduce bias associated with nonresponse have done so, and that the data are representative of the population. However, readers should be aware of the potential for bias and use caution when interpreting PIAAC results."

These stats don't pass the smell test. About a third of people in the US have a bachelor's degree, but only 13% can pass level 4/5 literacy challenge? If you dig into the sample questions, they are not hard. A level 4 task has the person read a short article and pull out the criticisms of some products.

I know not everyone with a bachelor's degree is 'smart' but it's hard to believe 2/3rds couldn't pass level 4/5.

Also 13% have a master's degree, does that mean those 13% are the only people passing level 4/5?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_...

I don’t think that’s it. AI mobile apps support voice conversations. And low literacy is rather a motivation for using AI to generate and summarize text.

I lurk on the teachers subreddit and get shown videos by teachers on TikTok and the impression I get from that algorithmic bubble is that the kids can't read any more - reading comprehension in particular is terrible. Lots of anecdotes of kids who can't read a few paragraphs and then answer questions about what was in them.