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📖 Artificial Intelligence and the Question of Trust

12th Grade reading comprehension · Expository · Read the passage, then circle the best answer.

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Artificial intelligence systems now help recommend films, translate languages, detect diseases in medical images and draft text. Their usefulness raises a practical question: when should people trust what these systems produce?

Part of the challenge is that many AI systems learn patterns from very large datasets rather than following explicit rules written by programmers. They can be remarkably accurate, yet they can also produce confident-sounding errors, especially in situations unlike the data they learned from.

Experts therefore emphasize verification. In high-stakes fields such as medicine or law, AI outputs are generally treated as suggestions to be checked by qualified professionals, not as final decisions. Transparency about how a system was built and tested also helps users judge its reliability.

For students, the same principle applies on a smaller scale: an AI tool can be a helpful starting point, but checking claims against credible sources remains essential.

Words to know: explicit: stated clearly and directly · verification: the process of checking that something is true

  1. What practical question does the passage raise?
    1. When people should trust AI outputs
    2. How to build robots
    3. Whether to ban computers
  2. Why can AI produce confident-sounding errors?
    1. It is always wrong.
    2. It learns patterns and may fail in unfamiliar situations.
    3. It follows only explicit rules.
  3. How are AI outputs treated in medicine and law?
    1. As final decisions
    2. As illegal
    3. As suggestions checked by professionals
  4. What advice does the author give students?
    1. Never use AI.
    2. Trust AI completely.
    3. Use AI as a starting point and verify claims.
✂ Answer key: fold or cut along the line

1. A (main idea)   2. B (cause and effect)   3. C (detail)   4. C (author’s purpose)

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