Processes of Patterning: AI, Literacy, and the Epistemological Challenge

Abstract

Abstract This article develops a conceptual analysis of what occurs when central dimensions of literacy are outsourced to Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) systems. Classical conceptions of literacy, sociocultural theories of mediated learning, and postdigital perspectives on knowledge practices, provide the theoretical foundation to further the argument that contemporary AI tools reshape the developmental processes through which judgement, independent thinking, and internal structures of meaning are formed. Using the Swedish AI‑based study platform Tentaklar as an example, we show how tools of this kind redistribute cognitive labour by generating interpretations, structures, and patterns on behalf of learners. Drawing on Aristotle’s phronesis and Vygotsky’s concept of mediation, we argue that externalising literacy to AI in such a way risks producing forms of borrowed judgement , where students are served the products of reasoning without having to go through the interpretive struggle of reasoning. We further propose that a fundamental aspect of literacy lies in patterning , the developmental process through which individuals reason and organise complexity into meaningful structures. We argue that AI‑mediated study tools risk undermining the conditions under which such patterning can occur. The article concludes by outlining design principles for AI systems that support rather than replace processes through which human judgement and pattern‑formation develop.