A week of real work with an AI assistant, measured

The situation

For one week you will use an AI assistant for work you actually have to do — messages, summaries, plans, explanations — and keep a log. At the end you will know three things most people never find out: what it saves you, how often it is confidently wrong, and what you must never paste into it.

What you'll be able to show

• Get useful results by giving context, not by trying harder
• Measure the assistant's error rate on facts you can check
• Turn a first draft into something that sounds like you
• Keep private information out of the tool, as a habit

What you need

• Any AI assistant with a free tier
• A log with five columns: date, task, prompt, what you changed, minutes saved or lost

Tasks

1. 1Five real tasks, logged
   Over the week, do five pieces of real work with the assistant. For each, log the task, the exact prompt, what you had to change in the answer, and an honest estimate of minutes saved or lost.
   A correct result: Five log rows, and at least one where the honest number is negative.
2. 2Bad prompt, good prompt
   Take one task from your log. Ask it badly first, then rewrite the request answering all four questions from lesson 3. Keep both answers side by side and write two sentences on the difference.
   A correct result: Two prompts, two answers, two sentences.
3. 3The fact test
   Ask ten factual questions about your city, your college or your field that you can verify. Record each answer and whether it was right.
   A correct result: Ten verdicts and a count of wrong answers — that number is the lab's most important result.
4. 4The reference test
   Ask for five sources or references on a topic you know well. Check whether each exists. Record how many did.
   A correct result: Five references, each marked real or invented.
5. 5Make it sound like you
   Take one message the assistant drafted for you. Edit it until a friend, reading it cold, would believe you wrote it. Show both versions to that friend and ask which is yours.
   A correct result: Both versions, and the friend's guess.
6. 6The privacy habit
   Take a real document you would like summarised. Before pasting, remove or replace every name, phone number, amount and identifier. Summarise the anonymised version. Write down what you removed.
   A correct result: A list of what was removed, and a summary that is still useful.

What to hand in

The five-row log, the two prompt comparison, the fact and reference test results, the two message versions with the friend's guess, and the privacy list.

How it is marked