Explore a career, then check the facts at official sources. Follow Carla's demonstration, pause to make your own attempt, and compare your check with the result.
Your activity / Right here
Bring a notebook. Begin below.
The activity is included on this page. Work on paper or in your own document; keep your first attempt and the evidence you checked.
AI Lab: Career Check
Use only an AI tool your instructor approves and that allows users your age. Check its minimum age and parent-permission rules first; an adult's permission cannot override an 18+ limit. Follow your school's rules, and do not share personal information. About 30 minutes.
1. Pick one career you are curious about. It can come from your interview.
2. Use Carla's Five Step prompt to ask an AI about the career: tasks, education, skills, outlook, and how AI is changing the work.
3. Ask: "What will people still pay a human to do in this job?" Write down the AI's answer, then write whether you agree and why.
4. Copy at least four of the AI's factual claims into a table:
| AI's claim | Official source (OOH or O*NET) | What the source says | Match? |
|---|
| | | |
5. Verify: Check each claim in the Occupational Outlook Handbook or O*NET. Where they disagree with the AI, the official source wins. Write the date you checked.
6. Record your AI use: which tool you used, what you asked, what you kept, and what you corrected.
Own It
No AI. About 25 minutes.
Write a one page career exploration brief by hand. It is this chapter's portfolio piece. Include:
1. The career and what people in it do (verified).
2. The usual education or training path (verified).
3. Skills that matter, including at least one human skill.
4. How AI is changing the work, from your interview and your sources. Label each point Fact or Prediction.
5. What people will still pay a human to do in this job, in your own words.
6. Your next step: a class, a club, a conversation, or a job shadow.
Context File Upgrade
Add this section to my_context.md:
## Career Interests
- Fields I am curious about:
- Skills I want to build:
- A career I checked on official sources (and the date I checked):
- My human edge (something I do well that I want to keep doing myself):
- My AI may: help me explore careers, practice interviews, and check my wording.
- My AI may not: invent experience, write anything I submit as my own, or see confidential information.
Interests and skills only. Do not add your name, school, employer names, pay, or other private details.
Skeptic's Corner: Sorting Jobs Claims
These statements are exercises to classify and check. Do not assume every statement is true.
Label each statement: Fact, Idea, Rob's Story, Made-Up Example, Rule, or Prediction.
1. "As of June 2026, employment for workers ages 22 to 25 in highly AI-exposed jobs was about 19 percent below where it would be, according to a Stanford team."
2. "AI will eliminate all entry-level jobs by 2030." (A claim you might see online.)
3. "Existing rules impose a gatekeeping role on attorneys to ensure the accuracy of their filings."
4. "Uncle Ray's software filed a generator under office supplies."
5. "Do not define judgment as whatever the machine cannot do today."
6. "Employers expect about two-fifths of workers' skills to change by 2030."
Read the video transcript
Read along, pause, or return to an idea. This transcript follows the selected lesson video.
I'm Carla, an AI avatar.
Today I'm exploring a career with AI,
then checking every fact against official sources.
AI is fast at describing careers.
It can also mix up education, pay,
and outlook numbers, or give me numbers from years ago.
So it explores, and I check.
I picked accounting and auditing,
the field of this book's author.
Step one, Role.
You are a career exploration guide for a high school student.
Do not do anything yet.
Step two, Objective.
I want to understand what accountants and auditors do,
and how people become one.
Confirm and wait.
Step three, Context.
I like math, puzzles, and asking why.
I haven't chosen a career.
And no personal information, ever.
Step four, Task Instructions.
Describe typical tasks, the usual education path,
useful skills, and how AI is changing the work.
Give me five questions to ask a professional.
Label anything you're unsure about.
Notice the last line: label anything you're unsure about.
I want the AI to show me where its confidence runs out.
Here's the answer.
It says accountants and auditors prepare and examine
financial records, most start with a bachelor's degree,
and jobs will grow 10 percent.
It sounds confident.
Time to audit.
Step five, Audit the AI Output.
Walk me through where you got the education and job
outlook information.
Its answer: it drew on general knowledge and can't point
to a specific source for the growth number.
Good to know, and it's exactly why I check.
Now the official source.
This is the Occupational Outlook Handbook from the Bureau
of Labor Statistics.
It has tabs for What They Do, How to Become One,
Pay, Job Outlook, and more.
One word about projections.
A projection is a prediction made with a careful method.
It describes a whole occupation.
It's not a promise about any one person's job,
including mine.
What they do: match.
A bachelor's degree as the typical entry-level education: match.
Two out of three sounds pretty good.
But one wrong number in a career decision can point you in
the wrong direction.
Job outlook.
The AI said 10 percent.
The handbook says employment is "projected to grow 5
percent from 2025 to 2035, faster than the average for all
occupations."
Mismatch.
The official source wins.
For skills and daily tasks, I also check O*NET,
sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor.
It covers over 900 occupation profiles,
and its My Next Move tool is built for students exploring careers.
Then one more question for the AI:
what will people still pay a human to do in this job?
It says judgment, explaining results to clients,
and taking responsibility for conclusions.
I agree, and I'll test that answer on a real person.
Because the best source for the real story is a person.
So I take the AI's five questions,
cut two, add one of my own, and bring them to a
professional.
Last step: record my AI use.
The tool, my question, what I kept,
and what I corrected, plus the date I checked the handbook.
So here's my record: two matches,
one mismatch, one number corrected,
and five good questions for a real person.
That's a good morning's work.
The AI helped me explore.
The official source told me what's true.
Now it's my research.
Your turn.
Before you use an AI tool
Follow your course or institution's rules. Use an instructor-approved tool that permits your age, and meet any required consent conditions. Keep names, contact details, school records, and other private information out of prompts. Use fictional examples when you can.
Learning without an AI account
Follow the demonstration, pause before each answer, and do the reasoning on paper. Discuss what you would ask, how you would check it, and which decisions would remain yours.
About the characters and voices
This course uses AI-created characters and synthetic voices. Carla is an AI avatar. They help tell the story; they are not real students sharing testimonials.
Designed for high-school and community-college learners. Choose examples from your classes, work, and everyday life. Keep your completed work in your course portfolio.
