Research & Fact-Checking

AI assistants are brilliant at explaining and organising information, and that makes them tempting to use as an all-knowing oracle. But they sometimes make things up, and they do it confidently. Today you'll learn when that happens and a quick routine to protect yourself.

Why assistants make things up

Remember Day 1: an assistant writes the most likely-sounding answer. Usually that's also the true answer. But when it doesn't know, or the question is unusual, the most likely-sounding answer can be plausible fiction:

• a statistic that sounds right but doesn't exist,
• a quote that a real person never said,
• a book, study, court case or web page that was never published,
• a correct-sounding rule that's out of date or from another country.

This is called a hallucination. The assistant isn't lying on purpose; it can't always tell what it knows from what merely sounds right.

Which answers to check

The more an answer depends on specific facts the assistant has to recall, the more you should check it:

Get better-grounded answers

Turn on web search

Most assistants can search the web (sometimes automatically, sometimes with a button or a "search" option). With search, answers draw on current pages and usually include links. This greatly helps with recent or specific facts.

Ask for sources

What are the current rules in the UK for taking a 2-week holiday during school term? Search the web, use official government or school sources where possible, and give a link for each key point.

Give it the source yourself

The most reliable approach is to paste in or upload a trusted source, and ask the assistant to answer only from it (as on Day 5):

Using only the official guidance pasted below, explain who qualifies for this grant. If the guidance doesn't answer something, say so rather than guessing.
 
[paste the official guidance]

A simple checking routine

For any claim you'll rely on, repeat or publish:

1. Spot it. Which numbers, names, dates, quotes and rules matter?
2. Open the source. Click the link, or search for the fact yourself.
3. Read it. Does the source exist, does it really say that, and is it current?
4. Confirm important things twice, ideally with an official or expert source.

Use AI as a research helper, not the final word

Assistants are excellent at the parts of research around the facts:

I'm writing a school report on how plastic gets into the ocean. I know nothing about the topic. Explain the main ways it happens, list the key terms I should search for, and suggest what kinds of reliable sources (organisations, types of study) I should look for. Don't give me statistics; I'll find those myself.

Use it to understand a topic, find the right search terms, plan your questions, and organise what you find. Take the facts themselves from sources you've checked.

Recap

• Assistants sometimes hallucinate: they invent facts, quotes and references that sound right.
• Specific facts (numbers, quotes, references, laws, prices, recent events) need checking most.
• Web search, asking for sources and pasting a trusted source all make answers more reliable.
• Check what matters: spot, open, read, confirm. Don't ask the assistant to verify itself.
• Use AI to understand and organise; take the facts from sources you've checked.

Tomorrow you'll work with files: PDFs, spreadsheets, screenshots and images.