AI Literacy and Governance as Foundations for Ethical AI: A Cross-National Review of Government Strategies

The increasing deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) across various sectors has prompted nations to develop comprehensive strategies for governing AI technologies, with a growing emphasis on improving ethical AI practices. This paper presents a cross-national review of government AI strategies by focusing on how AI literacy and governance frameworks contribute to the ethical deployment of AI. By analyzing AI strategies from five regions: the United States of America, the European Union, China, Canada, and Singapore, the paper explores how these governments address the challenge of building AI literacy and governance mechanisms to support responsible AI development. The study examines the role of AI literacy in empowering stakeholders—including policymakers, developers, and the general public—to understand, evaluate, and ethically engage with AI systems. The review identifies best practices, governance mechanisms, and gaps in national strategies and recommends strengthening AI literacy and governance as foundational elements for ethical AI. This research contributes to the global discourse on AI ethics by highlighting the critical role of literacy and policy in promoting trustworthy and socially beneficial AI deployment.