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Why AI Gets Things Wrong
An AI response can fail in several ways: inventing a detail, using an outdated source, misreading a table, making an arithmetic mistake or agreeing with a mistaken assumption. The repair depends on which problem occurred. This lesson teaches you to inspect claims and choose a useful check. You will work with supplied examples, compare failure types and practise rewriting conclusions at the right level of certainty. It is a textual lesson, not a contest to trick a chatbot. You need notes and a calculator. A chatbot is optional for discussing your reasoning; all examples and answer notes are included. The museum and records used below are fictional.
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What you'll learn
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:
- Classify claims as contradicted, unsupported, incomplete or ambiguous.
- Identify outdated sources, extraction errors and omitted conditions.
- Challenge agreement with an unsupported premise without demanding automatic disagreement.
- Rewrite an answer using checks suited to each claim and preserve unresolved questions.
Recommended before you start
None of these are hard requirements. The lesson is easier if they are already familiar, but everything it uses is explained along the way, so you can start without them.
- Familiarity with chatbot responses and basic arithmetic. All exercises use supplied fictional evidence.
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Inside this lesson
23 sections, about 90 minutes.
Section one is open to everyone. Create a free account to work through the rest and take the quiz.
01
Free previewSeparate the error from its possible cause
Attempt each exercise before reading its discussion. Your final output will be an error log and a short verification guide you can apply to future tasks. “The AI hallucinated” can describe a worrying result without explaining what failed. Start with the observable issue: which claim is wrong, unsupported or incomplete? Only then investigate possible causes. If a reminder says Tuesday while the supplied notice says Thursday, you can establish a contradiction. You cannot tell from that sentence alone whether the relevant note was omitted from context, misinterpreted or displaced by an earlier instruction. The model's own explanation of its error is another generated account, not a complete technical record of what happened.
02
Unlock free Activity: separate the error from its possible cause
03
Unlock free Worked answer: separate the error from its possible cause
04
Unlock free Fictional museum source pack
05
Unlock free Discussion: identify unsupported and outdated claims
06
Unlock free Activity: identify unsupported and outdated claims
07
Unlock free Worked answer: identify unsupported and outdated claims
08
Unlock free Check reasoning, extraction and missing context
09
Unlock free Example A: the wrong column
10
Unlock free Example B: correct inputs, wrong calculation
11
Unlock free Example C: an omitted condition
12
Unlock free Example D: an unresolved source conflict
13
Unlock free Activity: check reasoning, extraction and missing context
14
Unlock free Worked answer: check reasoning, extraction and missing context
15
Unlock free Recognise agreement with a mistaken premise
16
Unlock free Two illustrative replies
17
Unlock free Activity: recognise agreement with a mistaken premise
18
Unlock free Choose a verification method
19
Unlock free Build an error log
20
Unlock free Answer notes: choose a verification method
21
Unlock free Diagnose a complete response
22
Unlock free Worked diagnosis
23
Unlock free One possible replacement
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This lesson is pitched at intermediate level, so it helps to be comfortable with what is recommended above, though none of it is a hard requirement. Everything is explained in plain English, and if a term matters, the lesson covers it before using it.
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