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AI Explorers 6-8 / Week 09 / Friday
5/6
Week 09 · Confident and Wrong

Friday

Check with trusted sources
// Why smooth answers still need checking
⏱ about 20 min

Friday: Check with Trusted Sources

Raven finds a paragraph about Comet Zip printed on a club flyer.

"It says Comet Zip has three tails and visits every summer," she reads. "Is that real?"

Rocket shrugs. "It sounds official. It even has big numbers in it."

Nova hovers beside the flyer. "Sounding official is not a source," she says.

"Where could you check it? Who would really know?"

Raven grabs her coat. "The club's star atlas, and the librarian at the town library. Let us go."

Rocket tucks the flyer in his pocket and hurries after her.

A trusted source is a checked source

A trusted source is a place where facts have been checked by people who know the topic.

Reference books, teachers, librarians and other experts are good places to start.

Checking matters most when an answer is long, open-ended or about an expert topic, where confabulation risk is higher.

Comet Zip and the flyer are made up for our story. The habit of checking is real.

  • Slow down: does the answer sound sure but give no source?
  • Ask: who made this, and how?
  • Check: find the same fact in a trusted source.
  • Decide: use it only if a trusted source agrees.
Safety first
Ask a grown-up before using any AI tool outside this course.
Never type personal information into any app or website.
If something online is upsetting or asks for secrets, stop and tell a trusted adult.
PICK THE TRUSTED SOURCE
  • Read the question.
  • Tap your answer.
You want to check a fact about comets. Which source is best to start with?
A long, sure answer about an expert topic has no source. What should you do?
Two trusted sources disagree with the flyer. What should Raven decide?

Week review

Confident but false AI content is called ____.
Trusting a machine too much is automation ____.
In the lab, how many of the 6 machine sentences were true?
Week reviewTrue or false?
The same prediction method can give true or false outputs.?
A confident tone proves an answer is true.?
People may believe false content because it sounds confident.?
Real AI is a tool people build, and it can be wrong.?
WHY THIS EXERCISEConfidence is not evidence, so important answers need a trusted source.
THE SLOW-DOWN CHECKLIST
  • ?Ask who made it and how.
  • ?Decide whether to use it.
  • ?Find the fact in a trusted source.
  • ?Slow down before you believe it.
WHY THIS EXERCISESlowing down and checking keeps confident mistakes from spreading.
On paper, design a small bookmark that shows the four steps of the slow-down checklist.

You can now spot confident mistakes and check them. Tomorrow is your Explorer Quest.

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