Lesson 6 of 7 · 10 minutes
Check before you trust
Match your checking to the stakes: look at the sources, redo the important numbers, test the assumptions, and hunt for what was quietly left out.
Reviewed 18 October 2026
Why this matters
A single fluent answer can blend true detail, shaky inference and outright invention, with no change in tone to warn you.
How long the checking takes decides whether the time you saved was ever real.
The practical bit
Check facts against a source you trust, recalculate the numbers that matter, compare the answer back against the original material, and look hard for what might be missing. If a tool offers sources, treat them as a starting point and open each one yourself, because models have been caught inventing citations that look real and lead nowhere.
For anything you do repeatedly, write a short checklist. Decide the specific failure you are looking for before you start, because a check only counts when you said in advance what would have failed it. If honest checking takes longer than doing the task by hand, change the workflow, shrink the scope, or leave AI out of that step.
What it looks like
For a policy summary, line up every obligation and date against the actual policy, one at a time. Do not settle for 'the prose sounds professional'. Given a long document, these tools can walk you through most of it correctly and still drop or invent a detail with no flag, and you only catch it by cross-checking.
Before you spend money on a recommended product, confirm the current price, warranty and compatibility on the maker's own page, not on the summary that pointed you there.
Asking the same model 'are you sure?' and taking its second, equally confident answer as proof. Asking a second model helps a little, but when two models agree they can simply be wrong together, so a disagreement between them is often the more useful signal.
Use your judgement
Try it now
Build a three-point check
0 of 3 done
Check: Your checks should test the work, not merely ask the generator to endorse itself.
Ask Bit opens with a first line written for you. Your notes are not put in the link; copy and paste them in.
Use this in a real situation
Review a research briefingTrace claims, inspect sources and decide what is safe to reuse.Open the practical →Keep this
The way you check is part of the workflow, and part of the cost.