AI COURSE · SECTION 01 · LESSON 1 · FREE

BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE

TIME about 6 min reading, 10 min trying YOU NEED your AI of choice, on computer or phone
EARLY VERSION · BEING TESTED · YOUR FEEDBACK SHAPES IT

YOUR TURN

Open your AI of choice in a new tab, window, or app. Keep this lesson open beside it, or switch back and forth on your phone.

BEFORE YOU START: use your own personal account, not a work or company account, unless your employer has said that's allowed. Use only harmless, made-up, or public topics. No work details and no personal information. Lesson 2 covers exactly what never goes in.
TRY 1 · CHECK A CONFIDENT ANSWER · ABOUT 5 MIN

Copy this in, and replace the brackets with a hobby or topic you know well:

List five books about [a hobby or topic you know well].
For each one, give the title, the author, and the year it was published.

Pick one book from the list and look it up yourself on a library site, a bookstore site, or a search engine.

  • Does the book exist?
  • Is the author right?
  • Is the year right?

Either result teaches the lesson. If it's all correct, you only know that because you checked. If something is wrong, notice it looked exactly as confident as the parts that were right.

TRY 2 · WATCH IT FORGET · ABOUT 5 MIN

Start a new chat and copy in the rule:

For this whole conversation, end every answer with the word "Copy."
Reply "Understood" if you've got it.

Now send these ten questions one at a time, in order. After each answer, look at the last word.

    Tip: swap in your own questions any time. Questions that ask for longer answers usually make the rule slip sooner. The numbers keep track even if you stop partway.

    Track it: tap the number of the last answer that still ended with "Copy." Tap 10 if it never slipped, 0 if it never picked the rule up.

    Then open another brand-new chat and ask:

    What word did I ask you to end every answer with?

    What you'll likely see: the rule holds for a while and may slip as the chat grows, and the new chat has no idea what you mean. If your tool does remember, that's a tool built to remember, and it's worth knowing that about yours.

    TRYING THIS FOR A FRIEND? Tell them what was confusing, what worked, whether the copy buttons behaved on your phone, and roughly how long it took.