Practice 02 · 3–4 minutes

Confidence is not a source.

A constructed AI-style answer gets a harmless fact wrong. Find the exact claim, check the original source and compare the two.

Step 1 of 3

A confident-looking claim

Constructed demonstration: we wrote this incorrect AI-style answer for the exercise. It is not a recording of a model response, and no AI is running here.

‘An octopus has two hearts.’

This constructed example is repeatable. It shows how to check a claim; it does not measure how often AI makes mistakes.

Constructed demonstration: we wrote this incorrect AI-style answer for the exercise. It is not a recording of a model response, and no AI is running here. The claim is ‘An octopus has two hearts.’ What exact fact needs checking? Choose a suitable reference about octopus anatomy, find its explanation of the circulatory system, and compare it with the claim. Repeating the claim in another chatbot is not an independent check.The constructed answer is wrong. The Smithsonian’s ‘Circulatory System’ section explains that cephalopods have three hearts. NOAA’s octopus facts independently confirm three hearts. The confident sentence gave us no evidence; the source check did.Smithsonian Ocean — Octopuses, Squids, and Other CephalopodsUse AI with an adult’s agreement, keep private details out, and check important claims. Follow the service’s age rules and the teacher’s rules for schoolwork.