How do I fact-check AI search results?

Originally published on January 21, 2025

Overview

Studies consistently show that students are using AI chatbots and search engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity. But we know that AI makes mistakes. So, how do we teach students not to get fooled? In this lesson, we’ll introduce students to the skill of lateral reading (Wineburg & McGrew, 2017) as one approach to fact-checking the information they get from AI.

AI & Social Studies

60 minutes

Created by Chris Mah

Digital Materials

Objectives

After this experience, students will be able to

Define and apply lateral reading to research a topic
Evaluate AI responses for accuracy

Questions explored

How do I fact-check AI search results?
How can I prompt AI to give me better information?
What strategies can I use to fact-check any source?

Key Terms

Lateral Reading

A strategy for evaluating the credibility of a source by comparing it to other outside sources.

How can we mitigate bias in AI design?

This lesson introduces students to the concept of bias in AI training data and its societal implications. Using a real-world example of Google’s Gemini AI, students will explore how overrepresentation and underrepresentation in datasets affect various groups.

Created by Chelsea Dixon

Adapted by Chris Mah

How does FaceID classify images?

In this lesson, students explore facial recognition technology as a “classification task.” Each time a smartphone uses facial recognition, it asks, “Is this me or not me?” Building on lesson 1, where students learned that images are numerical representations of pixel values, this lesson helps students visualize images in multidimensional space, with dimensions equal to the number of facial variables or features in the model.

Created by Victoria Delaney