A history essay
You asked an AI for background on a topic. It produced three quotations with sources. They look perfect.
What do you do?
Step 1: What Would You Do?
There is often more than one good answer. Pick one and see what happens.
Worried about something
You have a symptom you are worried about. It is the middle of the night.
What is AI good for here?
Step 2: What That Was
The name for what you just worked out.
The critical fact: an AI sounds identical when it is right and when it is inventing. There is no tone change, no hedge, no tell.
It can invent sources too
Asked for a reference, it can produce a plausible author, title and year for a paper that does not exist. Check the source is real, not just that one was given.
Where it does not belong
Anything where the point is that you did it, and anything where being wrong matters — health, money, safety, legal.
What you type
Assume anything you type into a chatbot could be stored or reviewed. Do not paste other people’s private information into one.
Step 3: Try It
These ones do have right answers.
Where Does It Belong?
Sort each use.
Which of these is AI a good tool for?
Tap something to move it.
- Empty
- Empty
Step 4: Quick Check
Two questions, then you are done.
Question 1 of 2
An AI gives you a reference with an author, title and year. What do you check?
Question 2 of 2
How much does an AI sounding certain tell you about whether it is right?
Step 5: Your Life Mission
Something to do away from the screen. Nobody is checking.
Test the sources
- Ask an AI for three sources on any topic.
- Search for each one.
- Count how many exist.
Why: The count is the lesson, and it is more persuasive than anything anybody tells you.
Step 6: What You Learned
- It sounds the same right and wrong. Confidence tells you nothing.
- It can invent sources that look real.
- Not for anything where being wrong matters, or where the point is that you did it.
For the grown-up
The confidence point deserves emphasis because it breaks a lifetime of social calibration. People read hesitation as uncertainty, and that signal is simply absent here.
Schools vary widely on acceptable AI use. Worth having your child find out their school’s actual policy rather than assuming, because the consequences fall on them.
The privacy point about pasting other people’s messages is often overlooked and matters. It is somebody else’s information being handed to a third party.