AI, literacy, and the global learning gap

By 2050, Sub-Saharan Africa will be home to nearly 1 billion people under 18.

Today, 90% of 10-year-olds in the region cannot read a simple paragraph (according to the World Bank)

What happens when artificial intelligence accelerates, but foundational literacy remains out of reach for millions of children?

In this episode of Education Futures, Svenia Busson speaks with Paul Atherton, founder of Fab AI, about the future of AI in low- and middle-income countries, and whether it will close or widen the global learning gap.

Paul’s mission is to ensure that the world’s best technologies serve children who lack access to foundational literacy and quality schooling.

We explore:

• Why foundational literacy is the non-negotiable starting point
• How AI could help leapfrog infrastructure gaps in Sub-Saharan Africa
• Why most AI funding focuses on short-term pilots instead of long-term system architecture
• The risk that high-income countries experience exponential productivity gains while others fall further behind
• How rapid, decision-ready RCTs could modernize evidence in edtech
• The difference between AI as autopilot vs co-pilot in learning
• Why friction and effort remain essential to deep learning
• Why Paul worries more about today’s 15-year-olds than 5-year-olds

This conversation is about infrastructure, inequality, and the billion young people whose future will shape the global economy, and whose literacy will determine whether AI becomes a tool of opportunity or a force that widens the gap.

Try Fab AI's new web app which can help evaluate the quality of foundational literacy and numeracy materials for low- and middle-income countries: https://fab-content-curation.web.app/

Read the latest Fab-AI Research Paper: "Context counts: Measuring how AI reflects local realities in education" : https://www.fab-ai.org/initiatives/ai-for-education/edtech-quality/resources/research-paper/measuring-how-ai-reflects-local-realities

Subscribe to Paul's Substack: https://paulfabai.substack.com/