AI and education researchers Jasper Roe, Leon Furze, and Mike Perkins published a paper that urges educators to use carefully crafted metaphors to sharpen AI literacy. Furze proposed one metaphor that frames generative AI as similar to plastics: malleable, scalable, low cost at the point of use, but sticky and potentially harmful in digital environments.
Like bits of plastic, fragments of synthetic content are durable and can cycle into content that people read and cite, or into the source material that models train on.
The paper examines other metaphors educators can use for AI literacy, including AI as a funhouse mirror, a map, an echo chamber, and a black box. The authors provide detailed sample learning activities for each of those metaphors.