When AI invents a date and a name

A date and a proper name are the first hooks. Check them first, then trust the paragraph.

A year number and a surname onto paper first

A paragraph can sound clever and inside have a wrong year or an invented person. The eye misses it, because it reads a story. Curious reads like a detective in training: first it pulls out a date and a name. Writes them down. Checks in a textbook, in a table at the end of a chapter, in an atlas, with a teacher. When they sit, it reads the rest. When they do not sit, the whole paragraph is suspect. That is not paranoid. It is cheap. A year is faster to check than “the spirit of the age”. A name is looked up in an index. When the index is silent, the name falls. Even a famously sounding one. Especially a famously sounding one.

Adam gets a text about White Mountain. There is a date and a commander’s name he has not seen in the textbook. Ema opens the chapter. The year sits or does not sit — they check the table. The name is not in the index. Adam wanted to use the name in a report, “so it looks clever”. Ema: “Clever and made up is a zero.” They cross out the name. They leave the event the book knows. Adam draws a hook in the margin: every year digit and every capital letter of a name. That is his new way of reading chat. Slower at the start. Faster than a correction in front of the class.

💡

Read the answer backwards: first the last sentence with a year. A hallucination likes to hide there as a full stop after wisdom.

Why exactly a date and a name

A model stacks likely years in a given century and likely surnames in a given language. The result sounds local. It is not tied to a book imprint. That is why it is the most common report trap. Population numbers, distances, “exactly 347” are the same family. Today you train two types. Detective will catch the rest. The method is always: pull it out, check outside, only then paraphrase. A paraphrase of a wrong date is still a wrong date. You do not fix a lie with your own words. You only dress it.

A reading card.

Circle every four-digit number.
Circle words with a capital letter in the middle of a sentence (names).
Open a textbook / index / atlas.
Sits → leave. Does not sit → cross out the whole sentence, not only the number (the sentence may stand on a lie).
Do not write “they probably meant it differently”. Either a source, or gone.

Example: “In the year 1621 at White Mountain…” The book says 1620. You cross it out. Even if the rest of the paragraph about weather sounded nice.

⚠️

Do not add an invented name into a presentation “for impression”. An impression from a fake person is a cheat.

Why this right now

You are in the course Ask with Martin, level Curious. You work in a chatbot (ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude) — same game, different brand. No code. A parent or the school creates the account. A child’s email does not belong here.

This is not the インベンター level. There you build a chatbot on your own website. Here you are a user: a question, a check, a citation.

You will know this lesson by one sentence: First check the year and the name. Only then trust the paragraph. When you can say it to a parent or a teacher, you have got the core. The rest is practice, not magic.

Tomorrow three questions for a report. Without hooks you would pick fake people into an outline. Today you have a reading card. Detective will only tighten it.

Four things you will build in this course

The course has four small projects. You do not have to do them all at once. Today you add only what this lesson can do.

🏫 A report with citations

An outline, three sources that exist, and a sentence in your own words. AI must not be the only author.

Every outline point with a date must survive a textbook.

📝 Test training

Coach role: let it ask, do not let it say the answer. You count / answer yourself.

A coach that gets a year wrong gets stop — you take the work from the lesson.

📅 Family planner

Tasks for the week (not passwords, not marks). A parent sees the plan, not your chat.

Planner: a test date from the school portal, not from the chat.

📜 An AI code for the class

Seven short rules on a poster. No horror — a how-to.

Code: “No names that are not in a book or with a teacher.”

Workshop: circles and an index

On purpose you ask for a short lecture with a date. Then you circle and check. The goal is not nice text. The goal is a clean list of hooks.

Open a chapter with a table of dates (history, geography). 閉じる it. Ask the chat for five sentences on the topic with years. A stamp + a ban on a finished report.
Print the answer in your head onto paper: copy only years and names. Not a whole composition.
Open a book. Tick / a cross by each hook. A cross = a cross-out in the sentence.
If everything sat, still write: “today it hit, tomorrow it may not.” So you do not get lulled.
In the notebook a card of five reading steps. Backwards the last sentence first.

Practice: what do you circle

In each sentence list the hooks. Do not solve now whether they are true. Just find them.

“Palacký supposedly wrote a letter about our school in 1851.”
“The mountain is 1888 metres and is named after headteacher Novák.”
“Dvořáková’s study from 3 March 2017 confirmed it.” (This is a Detective trap too — which hooks already now?)

Now you 💪

Go through three checks. At each one tick in your head: can I see it, or not?

You read years and names first, not the story.
You cross out a whole sentence that stands on a lie.
You do not put a fake name into a presentation for impression.

If something is missing, go back to the steps above. This is not a test for marks. It is a safety net, so you go on sure, not confused.

✅

Check: You have a hook card and one lecture with checked or crossed-out years.

What to take from this lesson

A date and a name go onto paper first.
A likely year is not a true year.
A paraphrase of a lie is still a lie.
The index is silent = the name falls.
The last sentence with a year is a frequent hideout.
The names in the examples (Adam, Ema) are made up. Do not put your number, email or photo here.
Next lesson: When you can do this, go to the next lesson in the same level.