Introduction: A Test, a Picture and a Stance

All courses / Landscape / Module 1 / Chapter 1

Learning objectives

After the lesson the participant can:

State the measured answers to at least five of the fourteen test questions with their year and dataset.
Explain why the book treats wrong answers as instincts with a direction and not as ignorance.
Grade a quoted figure about AI at work against the book's five ranks of source.
Label a statement about the future as observable, expected or speculation.

Key concepts

The landscape: The world that appears inside a large European enterprise or public authority when its architecture becomes code and AI goes to work in it, as an assistant to a person, a feature a supplier switched on, or an agent with an identity of its own.
The nine instincts: The box, binary, model, straight-line, fear, size, destiny, single-perspective and blame instincts. Six names are Rosling's; the box and binary instincts are close relatives of his generalisation and gap instincts, and the model instinct has no counterpart in his list.
Five grades of source: Official statistics first, probability surveys second, self-selected surveys third, incident databases fourth and vendor reports fifth. A vendor survey or a self-selected sample is marked as such wherever the book uses one.
Possibilist stance: Rosling's word for someone who is neither optimist nor pessimist, looks at the measured picture, sees the problems and the progress in it at the same time, and asks what can be done.
Observable, expected, speculation: The three labels for statements about the future, taken from AI Governance, Chapter 22: happening now and documented; supported by a decided instrument or strong evidence with uncertain timing or form; plausible and consequential but not yet evidenced.

Interactive exercises

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

Interactive exercise 1 · Sort

Grade the source

Place each source in the rank the chapter gives it. The chapter grades its sources so that a reader knows how each figure must be read.

Interactive exercise 2 · Scenario

A number arrives

Read the situation and choose what the journalist should do, following the habit the chapter recommends for any number about AI.

Teaching plan

20 min	Participants take the fourteen-question test alone, in writing. The teacher collects every letter before any measured answer is shown, as the chapter asks of a team.
20 min	The teacher walks through the measured answers with Figure 1.1, giving figure, year and dataset for each, and notes which questions are self-tests and which have comparable perception data.
15 min	Short lecture on why we get them wrong: the nine instincts and the questions each one explains, then the five grades of source and the caption rules.
25 min	Exercise: groups build the room's own answer sheet and map its largest misses to instincts.
10 min	Closing: the possibilist stance, the three labels, and a first look at Figures 1.2 and 1.3 without trying to read them fully.

Discussion

On which question did the room's answers lean furthest from the measured value, and what in your daily sources of news or work would explain the direction of that lean?
The chapter labels its own claim that readers score below chance as speculation. What would it take to turn that claim into something measured?
Much of what is published about AI at work comes from parties with an interest in the answer. How should that change the way a figure is quoted in your organisation's own papers?

Written exercise

Exercise · 25 minutes

The room's answer sheet

In groups of four, tally the group's letters for all fourteen questions beside the measured answers. Pick the three questions where the group was furthest from the measured value. For each, write the measured figure with its year and source as the chapter gives it, name the instinct or instincts the chapter assigns to that question, and write one sentence on where the group's picture came from. Then look at Figure 1.2 or Figure 1.3 and write down the one question the picture asks its organisation's leader without the notation being explained.

Deliverable: A one-page sheet: the group tally, three misses each with measured figure, source, instinct and origin of the picture, and one question read from a landscape figure.

Your work

Self-test

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

What share of EU enterprises with ten or more employees, outside the financial sector, used at least one AI technology on Eurostat's list in 2025?
Show the answer
A. 19.95 per cent
Eurostat gives 19.95 per cent for all enterprises with ten or more employees in 2025. The figure 55.03 per cent is for large enterprises, 30.36 for medium-sized ones, and 8.06 was the share in 2023.
In the AI Incident Database snapshot of 2 November 2026, which domain is the largest among the 1,498 classified incidents?
Show the answer
C. Malicious actors and misuse, with 566 incidents, 412 of them fraud, scams and targeted manipulation
The largest domain is Malicious actors and misuse with 566 incidents, 412 of them fraud, scams and targeted manipulation. The subdomain closest to a runaway system has three. The counts measure what was reported and accepted, not all harm.
Where does the book rank a self-selected survey such as the Stack Overflow Developer Survey among its five grades of source, and how does it quote it?
Show the answer
D. Third, as perception data about its own respondents and nothing wider
Self-selected surveys come third. They are large and informative but representative only of the people who chose to answer, so the book quotes them as perception data about their respondents, not as a share of a population.