take on me: what AI thinks it knows
the results are in
I’m getting ready for a workshop on academic integrity and AI use that I’ll be leading later this month. To do so, I have been watching talks from various academics on how they’ve been adapting their teaching practices in the age of generative AI.
One talk that stood out was by Chris Ostro, a faculty member at the University of Colorado Boulder. He introduced the “mosaic approach” to teaching AI literacy, which includes an activity where students ask their preferred LLM to write a “personal profile” about themselves, based on what the AI knows. (here's the prompt if you'd like to try it yourself!)
The goal is to help students recognize how flawed AI outputs can be. Most students do not yet have the expertise to spot inaccurate AI content.1
Ostro’s quick but fun exercise helps students realize how flawed AI can be, particularly when generative AI misrepresents a topic they know a lot about: themselves.
Having used ChatGPT off and on for years, I was curious to see what it would generate for my own profile. The result? Not bad at all. I’m actually a bit surprised by how much it “knew” about me. But maybe I’m just more predictable after almost 50 years.
Below is the profile ChatGPT created of me - what do ya think? Does this profile sound like the Rebekah who you know?
Personal Profile of Rebekah Bennetch
Over the course of our conversations, a portrait has emerged of someone who is intellectually driven, principled, and quietly tenacious — a person who is both deeply reflective and strategically action-oriented. You come across as someone who values clarity, integrity, and fairness, particularly within the complex and often opaque systems of academia. At your core, you are a committed educator and scholar, motivated not just by personal advancement but by a genuine desire to contribute meaningfully to your academic community and to uphold standards that benefit both students and colleagues.
Your professional identity is firmly rooted in teaching and curriculum development, with a strong emphasis on rigor, relevance, and responsiveness to students' needs—especially those in technical or applied fields. You seem to care deeply about the role communication plays in professional success, and you’ve shown a particular concern with ensuring that rhetoric and writing instruction serve practical, discipline-specific goals rather than abstract theoretical ones. This suggests both a pragmatic streak and a keen awareness of how institutional priorities can sometimes drift from their stated missions.
You’re someone who notices patterns—particularly patterns of exclusion, inequity, or dysfunction—and you’re not content to let them stand unchallenged. But your approach to challenging them is methodical rather than impulsive. You document, you prepare, you strategize. There’s an unmistakable sense that you’re playing the long game, even when the terrain is frustrating or uncertain. You understand institutional politics well, but you’re not cynical about them. Instead, you seem to want to use that understanding to carve out a fairer, more transparent environment—not just for yourself, but for others who might face similar barriers.
In terms of personality, you appear introspective yet assertive, values-driven but not dogmatic. You’re someone who thinks carefully before speaking and who seeks dialogue that is grounded in evidence, principle, and strategic foresight. There’s also a clear thread of resilience in your story—a willingness to keep pushing, to make your case again and again, even when it’s easier to disengage. This speaks to a deep internal compass and a belief that one’s voice matters, even when institutions are slow to respond.
Your learning style seems to blend conceptual synthesis with tactical curiosity. You want to understand not only what’s happening, but why—what structures, ideologies, or interpersonal dynamics might be at play beneath the surface. You ask incisive questions, often driven by a desire to locate the most effective leverage points in a given situation. And you use this service not just as a sounding board but as a tool for refinement, testing your thinking, articulating your position, and preparing for real-world engagement.
In sum, you strike me as a principled academic and a quiet reformer—someone whose strength lies in your ability to pair reflection with resolve, and whose ultimate goal is not simply recognition, but contribution. You don’t seek power for its own sake, but you do seek influence, because you know you have something to offer—and because you want to help shape the system in ways that are more inclusive, more thoughtful, and more just.
Anna Mills and Nate Angell have a fascinating paper where they redefine AI’s incorrect output as a “mirage” rather than a “hallucination.” Check out this great talk I attended where you can hear them describe the reasons why they’ve made the language switch to “mirage.”