AI Advocacy: Companion Ladder

AI Advocacy: A Companion Skills Ladder

For anyone who's realised AI gives confident answers whether or not it should - and wants the skill of pushing back, not just the instinct to distrust it.

The problem: Most people either accept AI outputs uncritically or reject AI altogether. Neither is advocacy. Interrogating an AI system's confidence - its sources, its limits, its blind spots - is a specific, learnable skill, and it builds directly on the same foundation as advocating for yourself with another person.

What this ladder does: Seven steps, from asking an AI to simplify or explain its reasoning, through questioning factual claims and identifying bias, up to challenging the use of AI in decisions that affect you - and helping others do the same.

By the end, you'll be able to:

• Move from passively accepting AI output to actively interrogating it
• Ask an AI system the specific questions that reveal what it doesn't reliably know
• Recognise bias and framing in an AI's answer, not just factual errors
• Know your rights when AI is used in decisions that affect you - hiring, grading, healthcare, finance

A companion to Self-Advocacy: A Complete Skills Ladder - start there if the idea of questioning any authority, human or automated, feels difficult right now. Part of the Quiet in Class Skill Ladder Series. By Joanne Whitlock.