Make America AI-Ready

The U.S. Department of Labor announced the launch of “Make America AI-Ready,” a free artificial intelligence literacy course that will help American workers learn the basics of AI simply by texting “READY” to 20202. The course is uniquely designed to deliver bite-sized learning content and daily challenges to users entirely over text message. Users can complete the course in seven days by engaging for just 10 minutes a day. The text message-based design is intended to be as accessible as possible to all Americans, including those without a laptop or with limited access to the internet. 

The course engages participants with daily content that directly aligns with the five foundational areas outlined in the Labor Department’s recently-released AI Literacy Framework.

These content areas are: 

• Understand AI Principles: Understanding AI’s core concepts, capabilities, and limitations, creating the foundation for effective use.
• Explore AI Uses: Directly exploring different AI tools and relevant use cases, and how AI can complement human expertise.
• Direct AI Effectively: Understanding how to provide the right context to AI and how to create clear prompts that produce effective outputs.
• Evaluate AI Outposts: Assessing AI-generated results for accuracy, and relevance.
• Use AI Responsibly: Using AI in ethical and secure ways, protecting critical information, and ensuring accountability for outcomes.

The Labor Department designed the course to be the starting point for American workers in their AI journey, and the course concludes by offering participants additional resources to learn more advanced AI skills or pursue AI-related careers, based on their unique goals or interests.