A cybersecurity company built an AI agent to help it respond more efficiently to RFPs. Three years (and who knows how many hours of prompt tinkering) later, the AI still hallucinates.
I heard this story straight from the VP’s mouth, at a recent discussion facilitated by New Brunswick’s tech incubator, Venn Innovation. This was just one example illustrating the event’s theme, which was the need for employees to use critical thinking skills when leveraging AI.
Event participants shared many different approaches to policing AI, many of which were tool-focused. For example, one person insisted that the answer to avoiding hallucinations is to engage subject matter experts in building AI agents. Another person said he’s working on an agent that will be self-verifying because its outputs will automatically be checked by 13 other agents.
Such technical solutions foreclosed on the real question, which the discussion eventually led to: is it actually possible for the human-in-the-loop to develop the critical thinking skills required for using AI effectively?
It was all I could do to avoid standing up and shouting, “YES!”
I’ve spent my entire career (27 years and counting) teaching critical thinking. This essential competency has formed part of programs I’ve taught to university students and professionals like scientists, IT consultants, management consultants, and engineers.
These programs have covered diverse fields, including written and spoken communication, career development, peer mentorship, consulting, entrepreneurship, knowledge mobilization, and business development. On the outside, each of these learning situations looked very different. I’ve taught undergrads in the windowless basement of a university’s life sciences building, and I’ve coached facilitators in a luxurious corporate university in Belgium. At the core, however, the common thread has always been helping people improve their ability to observe and evaluate the quality of their thinking.
As you share your innovative ideas through written, spoken, and visual communication, it’s smart to integrate AI into your workflow. It’s even smarter to sharpen your critical thinking skills so you can take the gains in efficiency AI promises and avoid the risks of sloppy thought processes and outputs your audience will find off-putting.
The first step is easier than you might think. It starts with simply paying closer attention to the world around you. By intentionally flexing your “noticing muscle,” you’ll start to cultivate the habit of critical awareness you need to mitigate the risks of making AI your communication partner.
Start noticing
Fourteen years ago, I spent a few months managing a writing centre at a small university. As part of my mandate to embed writing skills across the curriculum, I delivered several guest lectures to classes in various disciplines. The goal was to help students produce analytical writing, which most undergrads don’t have experience with before they enter university.
High school graduates are typically fluent writers when it comes to producing a description, such as a plot summary or observations of a science experiment. At the same time, they tend to struggle when asked to dig deeper into the meaning of whatever they’re describing. My first job, therefore, was to help them make the mental shift from documenting surface-level impressions to exploring topics in depth.
For a session with a class in nutrition science, I turned this task into a kind of game. Rather than launching into a lecture on the basics of scholarly writing, I displayed an image of an outdoor feast in a Mediterranean setting. I didn’t keep the slide, but here’s an AI-edited image similar to the photo I shared:
I asked the class, “What do you notice about this picture?” And the responses sparked a fascinating conversation.
Some students commented on the food. Others mentioned the smiling faces, the diversity of ages and ethnicities around the table, the outdoor setting, the sense of community, the feeling of joy.
And a couple also noticed something about the photo I hadn’t paid attention to. “There’s no technology at the table,” they said.
That comment sparked a deep discussion about the way phones were interfering with our ability to connect with others, even when seated at the same table. We quickly shifted from talking about the photo to engaging in social and cultural analysis centred on eating practices.
This example of paying close attention to an image offers just one way to work the noticing muscle required to use AI wisely. Develop the discipline to decode artistic photographs, paintings, and cinematography, and you’ll find yourself automatically using that same discipline to question and evaluate AI outputs.
Everyday opportunities for strengthening critical thinking
Spending time in art galleries is one of my favorite prescriptions for building the mental habits that strengthen critical thinking. Here are a few others you might find it fun to try this week:
- Listen to the CBC radio show, The Debaters, in which two comedians seriously debate a silly proposition.
- Walk on the side of the street opposite to the one you usually take. (The first time I tried this, I thought I was in a different neighbourhood!)
- Try a walking or eating meditation.
- Sign up for Poem of the Day from the Poetry Foundation.
- Spend some time with someone under five years of age.
- Read a piece of serious journalism. Try The Walrus or The Atlantic, for example.
- Pick a fight with yourself. Choose a belief you hold strongly, like “the earth is round” or “vaccines are helpful,” and argue the opposite side.
Think of these light-hearted exercises like gentle conditioning for your noticing muscle. The more you practice trying on different perspectives and considering opposite points of view, the better you’ll be able to interrogate AI.
Because let’s get real: interrogation, not monitoring or validating, is what it truly takes to work effectively with AI as a communication partner.
AI doesn’t think, so you can’t expect it to have critical thinking skills. If you don’t want it sabotaging your work and your relationships, you need to bring the mental acumen and the discipline to use prompts such as these:
- How do you know that?
- Show your sources, with links.
- OK, now argue the other side of the case.
- Evaluate the text you just generated using these criteria…
In other words, each time you ask AI to help you generate a communication product, that’s also an everyday opportunity to practice your critical thinking skills. And, as with any other form of strength training, small repetitions over time deliver big benefits.
Need some help integrating AI effectively into your innovation communication? I’d be happy to get together for a quick chat to explore ways we might collaborate. Just message me on LinkedIn or send me an email.
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