When the AI gets it wrong: the family rule of checking before believing
AI sometimes invents books, opening hours and facts with total confidence. Turn checking into a house rule, and into a game.
You ask the AI for a children's book about volcanoes and it recommends one, with title, author and everything. Sounds perfect. Just one problem: it does not exist. The same happens with museum opening hours, historical dates or facts that sound straight out of an encyclopedia. The AI does not lie on purpose: it generates text that sounds likely, and sometimes likely is not true.
The unsettling part is the tone. The AI gets things wrong with the same confidence it gets them right. That is why telling kids to be careful is not enough: you need a concrete rule the whole family can repeat.
The house rule
Our suggestion: we check before we believe. Short, easy to remember, and it applies to adults just as much as to kids. It matters most when the answer leads to an action: buying a book, going somewhere, sharing a fact at school.
- Titles of books, films and songs: look them up at the library or the shop before you go get them.
- Opening hours, prices and addresses: always confirm on the official website of the place.
- Facts for homework or projects: find at least one independent source that says the same thing.
The game: spot the AI's mistake
Pick a topic your family truly knows: your neighbourhood, a sport you follow, dinosaurs if you have a 7-year-old expert at home. Ask the AI for a text about it and read it together, hunting for errors. When one shows up, celebrate it: your child just caught the AI. Few things teach better that the confident answer is not always the correct one.
Explaining source checking by age: for little ones, asking a trusted adult or looking in a book together is enough. Middle kids can compare two different pages and see whether they match. Teenagers can go after the original source: who said it first and how do they know.
FAQ
Why does the AI make things up?
Because it generates the most likely text based on what it has seen, rather than querying a database of facts. When information is missing, it fills the gap with something that sounds right.
So is it useless for homework?
It is great for understanding, summarising and practising. For specific facts, the old rule applies: check a reliable source before writing it down.