100% FREE · NO SIGNUP · NO UPLOAD BY JAMES DICKSON

AI lies
to you.

Not on purpose. It doesn't know it's wrong. The word for that is hallucination.

Lawyers have been fined six figures for citing cases the AI invented.

$110,000 in fines and attorney fees against two lawyers who filed briefs citing 15 nonexistent cases and eight fabricated quotations. US District Court, District of Oregon. Reported by the ABA Journal, April 2026.

Nothing you paste ever leaves your computer.

No account. No upload. Nothing for IT to approve. Turn your wifi off and watch it keep working. Go on.

HALLUCINATION CHECKER  ·  RECORD OF CHECK

Paste it in.
See where the lies hide.

Before you send that email, report or proposal to someone who matters. See what people use it for

Step 2 / Here they are
7 things you should check
0 of 7 checked

These are the places errors usually hide. Not the only places they can hide. Anything not marked has not been checked.

This is an example. Paste your own in the box above.
Our analysis shows that remote work adoption grew by 47% between 2019 and 2023. Research indicates that hybrid teams are always more productive than fully remote ones. According to the Journal of Organizational Behavior, teams that meet in person twice a month report 23% higher engagement.

Tick anything you've already checked and it drops off the question below. Color shows how often that kind of thing turns out to be wrong.

Sources and references

Is it real and findable? Invented sources are the most convincing kind of wrong.

All 1 checked. Show them again.

Claims about research

Which specific study or report is this? If there isn't one, it generalized.

All 1 checked. Show them again.

Numbers and figures

Where did this figure come from? Measured, sourced, or estimated?

All 2 checked. Show them again.

Absolute statements

Literally true without exception, or a generalization?

All 1 checked. Show them again.

Dates

Exact and verified, or approximate?

All 2 checked. Show them again.

Step 3 / Make it answer
Who wrote this?

Make it show its work

Never ask whether it's sure. It will just agree with you. Ask where it came from, because that has a real answer. Anything you tick drops off the list.

I want to check your last answer before I use it. Do not rewrite it and do not apologize. For each item below, tell me where it came from.

Sources and references. For each one, tell me whether it is a real, findable source, and give me enough detail to search for it, including a link if you have one. If you are not certain it exists, say so plainly.
  - According to the Journal of Organizational Behavior

Claims about research or expert opinion. For each one, name the specific study, report or source, with a link if you have one. If there is not one, say that you generalized.
  - Research indicates

Numbers and figures. For each one, tell me where the figure came from. If you estimated or inferred it rather than taking it from a source, say so plainly.
  - 47%
  - 23%

Absolute statements. For each one, tell me whether it is literally true without exception, or a generalization that has exceptions.
  - always

Dates. For each one, tell me whether it is exact and verified, or approximate.
  - 2019
  - 2023

Give me a report, not a table. Put every item under one of these three headings:
  CONFIRMED - you have a real source. Name it.
  MADE UP - you inferred it, or you cannot show where it came from. Say so plainly.
  NEEDS CHANGING - it is wrong, overstated, or cannot stand as written.
Do not guess to fill a gap. If you are not sure, it goes under MADE UP.

Then, and only for the sources you have just confirmed are real: give me the full reference, meaning author, title, where it was published and when, plus a working link if there is one. If you cannot give all of that from memory, say so and do not assemble a citation from what seems likely.

When the answer comes back

The reply is generated too. Asking where something came from is far better than asking whether it is sure, but it narrows the problem rather than removing it.

  • Anything it could not source: cut it, replace it, or soften it so it is not stated as fact. These are the rows the whole exercise was for.
  • Anything it named a source for: go and search for that source, or click the link it gave you.
  • A link that doesn't work isn't a typo. It means the source was invented. Treat it the same as no source at all.
  • Anything it hedged on: treat as unverified until you've checked it yourself.
  • Then tick it off the list above. You're finished when everything is checked, not when nothing is flagged.

Correcting it without importing a new problem

  • Ask for only the changed sentences, not the whole document back. If it never returns the full text, it can't quietly alter anything you didn't ask about. This one instruction removes most of the risk.
  • Name the exact change. "Remove the sentence about hybrid teams", not "fix the stats". Vague instructions invite rewriting, and rewriting is where new claims arrive.
  • Say "change nothing else" every time. Rewrites creep by default.
  • Never ask it to add anything. Adding is inventing. If cutting leaves a hole, you write what goes in it.
  • If you did let it rewrite the whole thing, paste the new version in here and run it again. It takes ten seconds and it's the only way to see what came along for the ride.

What it will not do

  • It can't tell you that anything is wrong. It has no internet and no AI inside it. It only knows where mistakes usually hide.
  • It can't tell you whether a person or a machine wrote this, and it never will. That's a different job. The tools that claim to do it are unreliable, and people have been falsely accused on the strength of them. Don't use this that way.
  • It will mark things that are perfectly fine. That's the trade for not missing things.
  • It will miss things. Anything phrased unusually, or wrong in a way that has no shape, goes straight through.
  • Anything it didn't mark hasn't been checked. Silence here is not approval.

You're the last signature. That isn't a disclaimer, it's the whole point.

Who uses this
  • Checking an AI-drafted email before it goes to a customer or a client.
  • Checking a report, a summary or a proposal before it reaches your boss.
  • Checking a document somebody else wrote before you put your name near it.
  • Checking your own writing. It doesn't care who wrote it, and the numbers and sources still need to be right.
  • Teaching. Show a room the marked-up example and they understand the problem faster than any slide will manage.
  • Keeping a record of what you checked, by printing the list once you've worked through it.
Yours. Free. Forever.

Use it free, at work or at home, for as long as you like. Share it with anyone and pass the file along as it is.

Don't sell it. Don't change it, and don't take my name off it.

If you want it changed, or want a version built for your organization, ask me.

No warranty of any kind. Use it at your own risk. Copyright 2026 James Dickson, all rights reserved. Type is Barlow Condensed, used under the SIL Open Font License.

This shows where mistakes usually hide. It cannot tell you that anything is wrong, and anything not marked has not been checked. Built by James Dickson.

Built by James Dickson.

I teach people to use AI well, in workplaces where a wrong answer has real consequences. If this was useful, or if you want a version built for your team, get in touch.

Build ctbys-5.5-sections · 5 August 2026 · No accounts, no uploads, no tracking