Paragraph 1
When Weylin Gomez’s elderly relatives called him, their voices carried the kind of quiet panic that comes from realizing something precious has slipped away. They had lost ten thousand dollars in a cryptocurrency scam, and they were turning to the youngest person in the family, the one who worked with computers, the one they hoped might know a magic word or a secret button to reverse the damage. Gomez, a thirty-year-old IT manager from Washington, Pennsylvania, stood in the middle of his own ordinary day and felt the weight of their question: Can we get the money back? He did not know the full scope of the fraud, but he knew enough to say probably not, and he hated that answer. It was not just the money, though ten thousand dollars is a devastating loss for any family. It was the betrayal, the shame, the vulnerability of people who had worked their whole lives and then been tricked by strangers who knew exactly how to sound trustworthy. That phone call changed the direction of Gomez’s life. He began thinking about how to build a business that would protect older adults from online scams, including the increasingly sophisticated world of AI-generated deepfakes that can make a familiar face say things it never said and a familiar voice plead for money that will never be returned. But to help others, he realized he needed to understand the technology himself, not just the surface-level warnings but the actual mechanics and the everyday realities of how artificial intelligence is being woven into emails, phone calls, job applications, and news. So he found his way to a two-hour introductory workshop on artificial intelligence offered by Literacy Pittsburgh, a place that might seem like an unlikely classroom for such a modern topic, but which turned out to be exactly where he needed to be. Sitting in that room, surrounded by strangers with their own worries, Gomez felt the beginning of something useful, a small step toward making sense of a landscape that felt overwhelming and, at times, deliberately designed to confuse.
Paragraph 2
The workshop was not a room full of tech experts. It was a room full of neighbors, each carrying their own reasons for being there. Three people said they wanted to learn how AI could help them apply for jobs, because they had noticed that job listings, resumes, and even interviews are being filtered and sorted by algorithms now, and they did not want to be invisible to the machines. Two others said they were tired of not knowing what was real online, exhausted by the constant flood of fabricated images, fake headlines, and stories that sounded true but were invented in seconds by a chatbot. They ranged in age, from young adults just starting their careers to older residents who remembered a time when the internet did not exist in every pocket, but they all shared a quiet recognition that artificial intelligence is becoming a daily companion in modern life, whether they invited it in or not. The instructor, Alev Kerenciler, stood before them with a calm, practical energy. She did not tell them that AI was a miracle or a monster. Instead, she told them that everybody can use AI, and then immediately cautioned them to treat it as a limited tool rather than a solution for everything. She showed them how a chatbot might help brainstorm healthy recipes or plan a trip, breaking down the steps of asking useful questions and evaluating the answers that came back. But she also warned them against the temptation to treat a chatbot as a companion or a mental health professional, because no matter how warm and human the language sounds, there is no real empathy inside the machine. Kerenciler works with students from many backgrounds, including recent immigrants who are learning English and hoping that AI might help them write resumes and cover letters. Her goal is not to let the technology do the work for them, but to teach them how to collaborate with it, how to question it, how to recognize when it is helpful and when it is leading them down a path of polished nonsense. Walking that line, she acknowledged the real dangers of AI without turning the workshop into a horror show. It was a careful, respectful dance, and the participants leaned in, asking questions and testing the tools, trying to find their footing in a world that changes faster than most people can follow.
Paragraph 3
The workshop is part of a new AI literacy curriculum developed by PittCyber, the University of Pittsburgh’s cyber law, policy, and security institute, and introduced in June. The curriculum covers not only what artificial intelligence can do, but also what it cannot do, and the many ways it can fail or mislead. It is being used by organizations in Pittsburgh, across Pennsylvania, and in other parts of the country, and it is designed for people of all ages and all levels of technological experience. Elise Silva, director of policy research at PittCyber, said the goal is to give people basic skills and vocabulary for a technology that can feel intimidating, even frightening. When you do not understand the terms, when you cannot tell a language model from an algorithm, when you do not know why a chatbot might confidently invent a false fact, the technology feels like a locked door. But with a few simple words and concepts, it becomes less scary, more like a tool you can hold in your hand and decide when and how to use. Silva described it as an issue of information and, ultimately, an issue of power. People who understand how AI works have more power over their own lives, their own decisions, and their own futures. People who do not are left vulnerable to scams, misinformation, and systems that quietly make choices for them without their consent. AI companies like Anthropic and OpenAI offer their own educational resources, and those can be useful, but Silva pointed out that people are looking for someone they can trust, and right now many communities do not trust big tech. They have seen too many data breaches, too many hidden biases, too many businesses profiting from their attention and their personal information. Public institutions and community organizations, on the other hand, hold a different kind of trust, built on years of showing up, answering questions, and helping neighbors. In developing the curriculum, Silva and her colleagues consulted community organizations about what residents actually needed to know, rather than assuming they knew best. The resulting material is flexible enough to be used with preteens and seniors, in libraries, community centers, and schools. It has already reached organizations across Pennsylvania, including the Pennsylvania Library Association, and the Henry L. Hillman Foundation helped fund its development. Alexandra Taylor, a program officer at the foundation, said the project was intentionally designed for people of different ages and different levels of familiarity with technology, because AI is not going to wait for anyone to catch up.
Paragraph 4
Silva and her colleagues at PittCyber see this work as part of building what they call civic resilience, the ability of people with diverse backgrounds and experiences to participate fully in a society that is increasingly shaped by algorithms. Expanding access to new technology is not enough, she argued. People also need the skills to use that technology safely, responsibly, and with a clear understanding of its limits. Handing someone a smartphone without teaching them how to verify a source, protect their privacy, or recognize a deepfake is not empowerment; it is simply exposure to greater risk. The same logic applies to the youngest members of society. Other Pittsburgh-area organizations are also working to ensure that AI skills are not limited to people who already have access to the latest gadgets and the best schools. STEM Coding Lab, a nonprofit that teaches computer science to children, is developing an AI fluency curriculum for students in kindergarten through eighth grade, with plans to offer it in school districts including Sto-Rox, Duquesne City, and Clairton. Jason Hivner, the organization’s director of program development, said that AI is already part of children’s lives, whether they ask for it or not, and that ignoring it would be a disservice to them. Younger students will begin with foundational concepts like pattern recognition, learning to see the way machines identify shapes, sounds, and sequences in the world around them. Older students will move on to generative AI, the type of technology that can create text, images, and sounds on command, and they will grapple with the ethical questions it raises, questions about originality, truth, and responsibility. The organization hosted an August camp for middle school students that included a lesson on AI and machine learning. A guest speaker talked about how they use AI in their own work, showing the students that this is not just a distant concept but a practical tool for real jobs. The students were then asked to imagine a “future-ready city park,” incorporating AI-connected components, such as using machine learning to recognize crowds and manage resources. Hivner said STEM Coding Lab is seeking state and foundation support so that it can offer its programs at little or no cost to families, because the last thing they want is for access to become another form of inequality.
Paragraph 5
Adam Paulisick, a technology entrepreneur and Carnegie Mellon University professor, described AI as a potentially powerful tool for expanding access to information and helping people make better decisions. He imagined a world where AI, taught alongside fundamental life skills, could help people understand financial responsibility, navigate complex government processes, and explore subjects they might never encounter in school. A person could ask a chatbot to explain the terms of a loan, to break down a confusing legal letter, or to help them think through the pros and cons of a major decision. But Paulisick also recognized that for many residents, the first step is more basic. Before they can use AI as a tutor or a guide, they need a trusted place where they can ask simple questions without feeling judged. They need to know who to call when they are not sure whether an email is a scam, whether a job posting is real, or whether that video of a politician saying something outrageous is actually authentic. Jennifer Blatz, program director for the Greater Pittsburgh Digital Inclusion Alliance, said libraries, nonprofits, and other community institutions can help people navigate a technological landscape that is changing faster than many residents can follow. She described what happens when families and individuals are left to figure it out alone: it is just the wild west. There is no sheriff, no rulebook, no one to tap them on the shoulder and warn them that the beautiful website or the urgent text message is a trap. Blatz’s words echo the sentiments of many educators and advocates in the region, who believe that the fight for digital dignity is not just about wires and routers, but about human connection. The libraries, community centers, and nonprofits that have earned the trust of their neighbors are the natural places to build that connection. They are the spaces where a worried grandmother can sit down with a human being and ask, “Is this real?” without being made to feel foolish. They are where a young job seeker can learn not only how to write a prompt for an AI resume builder, but also how to read the results critically and tell a helpful suggestion from a hallucinated credential.
Paragraph 6
This growing movement to teach AI literacy across Pittsburgh is still young, but it is already branching out in promising directions. The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, a beloved institution that has long been a refuge for curious minds, is hosting a series of public programs. On September 15, there is an introduction to AI basics, a chance for anyone to learn what artificial intelligence is and how it is used in everyday life. On September 29, a workshop on writing effective prompts will teach participants how to give clearer, more useful instructions to AI tools, a skill that sounds simple but makes all the difference between a vague, unhelpful answer and a genuinely useful one. On October 6, a session on researching with AI will explore how these tools can be used to find information and evaluate sources in an era of deepfakes and misinformation. Carnegie Mellon University’s AI Institute for Societal Decision Making is also offering resources for people who want to dig deeper. These programs are open to the public, reflecting a belief that the benefits of artificial intelligence should not be reserved for an elite few. The story of Weylin Gomez, the IT manager who could not save his relatives’ money but decided to try to prevent the same loss for others, is a reminder that this is not an abstract debate. It is about real people, real losses, and real hopes. It is about a society trying to figure out how to live with a technology that can be both a miracle and a menace, often in the same afternoon. The workshop attendees who wanted to use AI to get jobs, the older adults who wanted to recognize lies, the children learning pattern recognition in a summer camp, they are all part of the same human struggle to maintain agency in a world that is changing beneath our feet. Organizations like PittCyber, Literacy Pittsburgh, STEM Coding Lab, and the Carnegie Library are building bridges between the people who build the technology and the people who wake up every day having to live with it. They are not promising that AI will be easy or that it will solve every problem. They are promising something more important: that no one will have to face it alone. In a time when trust in large institutions is fragile and fear of new technology runs high, that simple promise, the offer of a safe place to ask questions, learn the vocabulary, and share the power, may be the most valuable resource of all. And it belongs to everyone.