Digital plastic: a metaphorical framework for Critical AI Literacy in the multiliteracies era

How can educators critically engage with the affordances provided by Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) while remaining committed to the core tenets of the multiliteracies project, such as educational justice? This article develops answers to this question by offering a conceptual lens through which GenAI can be investigated. Through a theoretical, analytical process using Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), we map the ways in which GenAI can act as both a democratizing educational tool and a pollutant of existing knowledge systems, in a manner that is comparable to synthetic plastics. We argue that the nature of synthetic plastic mirrors that of synthetic GenAI outputs: both are human-created, ubiquitous, malleable, and persistent in their contexts and ecosystems, and both have advantageous uses and potentially toxic implications. We develop a multiliteracies-informed conceptual approach to this notion of “digital plastic”, which provides insight into how GenAI both expands access to multimodal resources while also threatening social and educational justice, with specific implications for learners in the Global South, who may face deficits in both epistemic and material access to the technology. We conclude by arguing that because of the risks of “digital plastic”, Critical AI Literacy (CAIL) must be part of a broader multiliteracies framework.