Does asking 'Are you sure?' check an AI answer?

No. The tool can agree with you and still be wrong. Open the source it named, or reject the claim.

What is a good check for a fact?

A page you can open that states the same fact, from the organisation that owns it. A second chatbot is not that page.

Which answers need no source?

A draft of your own notice, a rewrite of your own sentence, or a list of ideas. Facts about money, law, medicine, and exams do need a source.

Course

How to Check an AI Answer Before You Trust It

The Evolve Team26 September 2026LearningAI

Ask for the source, open that source, and check the claim yourself. Asking “Are you sure?” is not a check.

The AI course for curious adults gets you talking to ChatGPT. This lesson is the habit that keeps that conversation from becoming a rumour.

Ask for the source

The page, and the line you should read.
Open it

No link, or the page does not say it, and the claim has failed.
Read the line

A headline is not the fact. Dates and prices slip here.

A check that is not another chat

The three-step check

Ask one follow-up: “What is the source for that, and what is the exact line I should read?”
Open the link. If there is no link, or the page does not contain the claim, the answer has failed.
Read the line yourself. A matching headline is not enough. Prices, dates, ages, and grades are where these tools slip.

Stop there. Do not ask a second chatbot to vote. Two fluent answers can share one invented number.

What a source is

A source is a page from the organisation that owns the fact.

Claim	Source that counts
A CSEC grade	CXC, or your teacher reading CXC’s scale
A chatbot’s price	That company’s own pricing page, on the day you look
A driving age	The licensing authority in that country
A medicine dose	A doctor or a pharmacist, not a chat

A blog that repeats the claim is not a source. This site is not a source for a price. The day-job essay tells you to check the vendor’s page before you pay. That is the same rule.

What you can trust without a link

Use the tool freely for work that is yours:

Rewriting a sentence you wrote.
A list of ideas for a lesson you already understand.
A draft notice, which you will edit using the notice lesson.

If a name, a phone number, or a date appears that you did not provide, delete it. The tool filled a gap. Gaps are where inventions live.

A ten-minute practice

Take one answer from a chat this week. Pick one sentence that sounds like a fact. Run the three-step check. Write down whether the source existed. That single note is the lesson.

Do not paste account numbers or anyone’s private details while you practise. What never to paste is the other half of this course.

Discussion

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