Principles of AI · Unit 2: Working With AI ·  Activity 2.1.1

Context & Verification — Brief It, Then Check It

A bus schedule, a library book, and an AI that sounds sure about both  ·  Approx. 2 class days

StarringBrief · ContextFit · LimitsCheck · Verify
Unit 2: Working With AI

Quick reference for essential, helpful and noise details, the four-part brief, fit versus truth, and the three outside checks.

Context and Verification infographic: the AI only knows what you give it, essential helpful and noise details, the four-part brief, fit is not truth, and checking facts, numbers and sources outside the answer

🧭 Plot Summary

An AI can only work with what is in your conversation. It doesn't know your school's schedule, which library you mean, or what you can't do. When a prompt leaves something out, the AI doesn't stop. It fills the gap with something that sounds right.

Your mission has two halves. First, brief it: give the AI the facts and limits it can't guess. Then check it. A well-briefed answer will fit you, but fitting you is not the same as being true. The hours it quotes, the total it adds up, and the study it cites all need a source outside the answer.

What you'll do in this activity

  • See what an AI is forced to guess when a prompt leaves out the essentials, using a bus-schedule prompt you can switch on and off.
  • Learn to sort details into essential, helpful and noise, and to spot the one detail a prompt is missing.
  • Write a four-part brief (goal, facts, limits, format) and tell the AI to ask before it guesses.
  • Predict, run and compare a library prompt, then check what the AI said against a source outside its answer.
  • Rewrite three earlier prompts with context and compare before and after.
  • Learn the difference between an answer that fits you and an answer that is true, and a routine for checking facts, numbers and sources.

Ground rules

  • Don't type personal information into an AI tool: no full names, addresses, or details about other people.
  • Use "a friend" and your town's public places in your prompts, not real people's schedules.
  • Keep your Prompting Log in the log. Don't paste whole logs into a chatbot.

Why it matters

Almost every AI mistake you'll meet in the rest of this unit is a missing-context mistake or a checking mistake. The habits here (brief, then check) are the ones you'll use in the Productivity Study and every project after it.

✅ Self-Check Before You Share

Check off each item as you get there. These aren't grades. They're your own signal.