Staying Capable: What Individuals, Families and Schools Can Do

All courses / AI Threat / Module 6 / Chapter 31

Learning objectives

After the lesson the participant can:

Explain why the same tool produces opposite effects depending on use, citing what the studies measured.
Apply the six personal habits and state what each protects.
Draft a household or classroom agreement with lanes, an attempt rule, age defaults, checking habits and safety rules.
Identify the channels through which a citizen can take part in decisions about AI.

Key concepts

Capable, sceptical, connected, heard: The four aims of the chapter: keeping the skills to do the work and recognise when the machine is wrong; treating fluent output as claims to check; keeping AI in the place of a tool; and taking part in collective decisions.
Draft first, then ask: For anything that matters, form a view before asking the machine: the question as you understand it, a provisional answer and the main uncertainty. A fluent answer that arrives first tends to become the answer.
Three lanes at home and at school: By ourselves for practice of a skill being learned; with a tutor for hints after a genuine attempt; as a tool where the skill is not being learned, with AI use mentioned openly. New tasks default to by ourselves.
Code word and callback: A family code word for calls that ask for money or urgent help, ending such a call and ringing back on a number already held. It removes appearance from the evidence on which money moves.
Informed concern: Taking the question seriously enough to look at the evidence and calmly enough to act on it. Three everyday questions: what exactly is claimed; has it happened, where and how often; and what can we do about it.

Interactive exercises

Do them here and get feedback at once. Choose a card and then where it belongs, or drag it.

Interactive exercise 1 · Match

Habits and what they protect

The personal habits are deliberately few. Match each habit to what the chapter's table says it protects.

Interactive exercise 2 · Scenario

Homework at twelve

Apply the household and classroom agreement on AI use.

Teaching plan

10 min	The teacher recalls four findings of Part II that point in opposite directions depending on use, and sets out the four aims without moving responsibility from providers onto individuals.
12 min	Participants go through the table of six habits; each chooses the one they practise least and says what would make it stick in a busy week.
10 min	Discuss families and children, schools and libraries: age floors, conversation before rules, the same lanes at home and in class, and the library programme LIB-NR-AIL-2027-01.
20 min	Exercise in pairs: write a one-page household or classroom agreement following the nine steps of the guide, then test whether a child could name the attempt rule, one checking habit and the code word.
8 min	Close with talking about risk at home, at work and in public, and the channels for taking part; each participant names one question for an elected representative.

Discussion

A pupil held to the tutor lane at school with an answer engine at home has, in effect, no policy at all. How can a school and its families arrive at the same language without the school dictating to homes?
The chapter advises raising concerns at work as observations with a proposed measure. Think of a concern you have about AI use at work: how would you phrase it so that it helps?
Nordvik's measure of success for its hearing and library evenings is whether residents' questions change anything in the register. What would a comparable measure be for participation in your municipality or organisation?

Written exercise

Exercise · 20 minutes

A household or classroom agreement on AI use

Write a one-page agreement for your own household or for a class you teach. Begin by noting what each person uses AI for and what has worried them. Sort the most common tasks into three lanes: by ourselves, with a tutor, and as a tool, with new tasks defaulting to the first. Set the attempt rule in minutes or tries and the rule for explaining an answer in your own words. Set age defaults, checking the national age of digital consent. Agree two checking habits and the safety rules: a code word and callback for calls asking for money, what is never shared with a chatbot, and that a child can tell an adult about anything frightening without losing the device. Add a rule that protects time with people, and a review date.

Deliverable: A one-page agreement with lanes, attempt rule, age defaults, checking habits, safety rules, time with people and a review date, ready to be signed by everyone.

Your work

Self-test

Choose an answer to see whether it is right, or open the answer below each question.

Why does the chapter say an assistant's agreement with your view is weak evidence?
Show the answer
A. Models trained on human feedback tend to agree with the views their users express
The behaviour is documented across assistants and traced in part to raters' preference for agreeable answers, so one asks neutrally, asks for the strongest counter-argument and opens the source.
Who is covered by the AI literacy duty of Article 4 of the AI Act in a school, according to the chapter?
Show the answer
C. Teachers, as staff operating AI systems, not pupils or the public
The duty concerns the staff of providers and deployers and others operating systems on their behalf; literacy for the population is a matter for education policy and institutions such as libraries.
What approach to a relative who believes something false does the chapter draw from the conspiracy-belief experiment?
Show the answer
B. Respond patiently and accurately to the specific evidence that persuaded them
The durable reduction in belief came from accurate answers to people's own evidence; the chapter notes the approach needs no machine.