The Legal Challenges of AI Literacy Between Enforcement and Compliance

An increasing amount of work is devoted to the challenges of AI literacy. However, there is still limited research on how the law intends to tackle such challenges. The paper aims to fill this gap with the analysis of the AI Act of EU law vis-à-vis the US Executive Orders on AI from 2023 and 2025. Four issues of law enforcement and compliance with legal regulations follow as a result of the analysis. Such issues regard the development of new standards, forms of accountability for AI literacy, the effectiveness of soft law policies, and the anticipatory capabilities of the law in tackling the pace of technological innovation. A new digital divide, even harsher than the first wave of the early 2000s, should be expected if the lawmakers’ response to the challenges of AI literacy is not up to the task.