From the book · Unleash Your Business With AI
Chapter 22: AI makes things up
The 2 prompts from Chapter 22, ready to copy, with the chapter's mistakes to avoid and three tasks for this week.
The four-step check
Review the draft below before I use it. Task: 1. List every factual claim in it: every number, price, date, name, specification, certification, rule, law, tax rate and quotation. 2. Mark each claim with one of three labels. FROM INPUT: it appears in the facts I gave you. Quote the line it came from. ADDED BY YOU: it was not in the facts I gave you. NOT SURE: you cannot tell. 3. For every ADDED BY YOU and NOT SURE item, tell me which document or person I should check it with. 4. Then list the three weakest points or most likely errors in the draft. Rules: Do not rewrite the draft. Do not add new facts. Do not invent a source, link, case name or reference to make a claim look supported. If you cannot find a claim in the facts I gave you, say so plainly. Draft: [paste the draft] Facts I gave you: [paste the price list extract, product facts or notes the draft was based on, with personal details removed]
What you should get back: a table of claims with a label against each, a list of where to check the doubtful ones, and three weak points.
Check: the labels are the AI's own account of itself, and that can be wrong too. Pick two items marked FROM INPUT and find them in your document yourself. If either is missing, check every line by hand.
That's the first one
Open the rest, free
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- The four-step check (2)
- Mistakes to avoid
- Do this week
The four-step check (2)
The text below will be used in [a reply to a tax notice / a tender document / a legal notice / a staff policy]. It may contain references to laws, sections, rules, circulars, case names, standards or rates. Task: 1. Extract every such reference into a table with three columns: the reference exactly as written, the sentence it supports, and "Verified by", which you leave blank. 2. Below the table, list any sentence that states a legal or tax position with no reference at all. Rules: Do not tell me whether a reference is correct or whether it exists. You cannot confirm that reliably. Do not add, correct or replace any reference. Do not invent citations. Text: [paste the text, with personal details removed]
What you should get back: a table of every reference in the document, with an empty column for your CA or lawyer to initial.
Check: hand the table to the professional along with the draft. Nothing goes out until every row is initialled or the sentence is removed.
Mistakes to avoid
- Asking "are you sure?" and accepting "yes". It may confirm its own invention in the same confident tone. Ask where the claim came from instead.
- Checking only the lines that look doubtful. Invented lines do not look doubtful. Check every price, date and claim.
- Trusting a reference because it looks official. A case name with a year and a court can still be invented. Somebody has to find the original.
- Giving the checking to the newest person. The checker needs to know the work. A trainee cannot spot a wrong GST line.
- Letting AI do arithmetic in its head. Ask for the formula or the working, then match one total with your books.
- Sending because it is late and the draft reads well. A draft that reads well is exactly what an invented one looks like.
Do this week
- Take one AI-written message your business sent last week. Run the four-step check on it now and note what you would have changed.
- Save the two prompts from this chapter in your shared prompt document (Chapter 6), with one owner named against each.
- Tell your team the one rule in your next meeting: AI drafts, a person sends, and the sender's name goes against every quotation, complaint reply, payment reminder and product description.