> This is unsurprising to me, since people are often quite resistant to learning.

This is an attitude I had when I was 19 and had spent a bunch of time and money going to school. I had a life event that made me leave school and take on a huge debt that had to be paid. Most people learn - they just learn in context of their necessity and their own passions. For other things, they lean on the community around them (doctors, lawyers, accountants, software engineers etc...)

> AI seems to be a good tool for people who are already good at learning and critical thinking to use to accelerate their learning.

I'm watching the huddled masses start to figure it out. AI is going to be to arrogant intellectualism what the gun was to the knight. Now anyone who can operate a mobile phone (and literacy is not required) has access to a shocking level of expertise and contextualized knowledge. And as AI improves this will be more and more the case.

> constantly missing words due to a lacking vocabulary

First prompts of non developer employees were "what does ___ mean?". Real time vocabulary is a thing now.

> “well, maybe literacy is actually not so important,” is so utterly ridiculous that I hope it’s satire and I’m just missing the joke.

It's not a joke. AI is going to reshape society. It's just started. Back to the gun analogy - the knights are just now starting to realize that proficiency with a sword and 70kg of armor are no match for a peasant with a pistol. Likewise, I suspect that Joe six-pack with AI in his pocket can do knowledge work at a "way good enough" level. I don't want to accept it, but that seems to be reality.

> - the knights are just now starting to realize that proficiency with a sword and 70kg of armor are no match for a peasant with a pistol

This isn’t a metaphor/analogy that works. There is a parallel in the introduction of a tool that has more “firepower” but that isn’t the crux of the issue when it comes to intelligence.

You can give fable to someone who has never written code before and someone who has experience writing SW. Your outcomes are very different.

The crux of the matter is that you need to know what “good” looks like to use automation or augmentation tools well. This is why it’s a greater boost to people with experience.