Tracing Everyday AI Literacy Discussions at Scale: How Online Creative Communities Make Sense of Generative AI

2026-03-09

AI Summary

This study addresses the gap in existing AI literacy frameworks, which are predominantly expert-driven and overlook bottom-up, practice-based evolution within creative communities. By analyzing 122,000 posts across 80 creativity-oriented Reddit subreddits over a three-year period, the research employs large-scale text mining, topic modeling, and event-driven time-series analysis to reveal how AI literacy dynamically emerges through everyday practice and is significantly shaped by salient external events. The work presents the first systematic account of the spontaneous development of AI literacy in creative online communities, identifying four stable thematic clusters. Findings indicate that users primarily focus on practical tool-use skills in routine discourse, while discussions concerning AI capabilities and ethical implications surge only during critical events, highlighting the event-contingent nature of broader AI literacy engagement.

Technology Category

• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Computational Creativity
• Humans and AI: Understanding People, Theories, Concepts and Methods
• Application Domains: Humanities & Computational Social Science

Application Category

• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Trust and reliance of crowd workers and data experts on GenAI
• Semantics and Knowledge: Data modeling to support human-machine intelligence, including LLMs agents, intelligent system behavior, explanations, and user-friendly interactions
• Social Networks and Social Media: Generative AI / large language models and their impact on social systems

Abstract

Developing AI literacy is increasingly urgent as generative AI reshapes creative practice. Yet most AI literacy frameworks are top-down and expert-driven, overlooking how literacy emerges organically in creative communities. To address this gap, we performed a large-scale analysis of 122k Reddit conversations from 80 creative-oriented subreddits over a three-year period. Our analysis identified four consistent themes in AI literacy-related discussions, and we further traced how discourse shifted alongside major AI events. Surprisingly, creators primarily frame AI literacy around how to use tools effectively, foregrounding practice and task skills, while discussions of AI capabilities and ethics surge only around high-profile events. Our findings suggest that AI literacy is dynamic, practice-driven, and event-responsive rather than static or purely conceptual. This study provides insights for researchers, designers, and policymakers to develop learning resources, community support, and policies that better promote AI literacy in creative communities.

Problem

• AI literacy
• creative communities
• generative AI
• online discourse
• practice-driven learning

Innovation

• AI literacy
• generative AI
• online creative communities
• large-scale discourse analysis
• practice-driven learning