Can you teach a tiny rule?
A circle. A triangle. A new example. Let’s see what changes.
Patterns, not a person
Spot a simple pattern, then learn why an AI guess still needs checking.
Read the video out loud
Hi! I'm Patch, a pretend computer character. Let's spot a pattern together.
Red circle, blue square, red circle. What might come next? A blue square is a good guess.
AI was trained with lots of examples. It uses patterns to make words or pictures.
But a good-sounding guess can still be wrong. AI is a computer tool, not a person who knows you.
Try our pattern game with a trusted adult. You choose, check, and stay in charge.
Patch’s shape workshop
First, help label four examples. Then predict what our tiny rule will do with two new cards.
Hear Patch’s short reminder. Your grown-up can read the full cards below.
Spoken words: Listen with your grown-up. Sort the shapes. Then see what our tiny rule can guess.
Play without the buttons
Draw two circles in different colours and two triangles in different colours. Put circles in “Round” and triangles in “Corners.” Now try a circle in a new colour.
Our toy rule remembers labels for shapes it has seen. What should it do with a new star shape? Say “not enough examples,” then explain what it would need to learn.
Your choices stay in this tab. There is no score to save, no ranking, and no account. Start again resets this game; closing the page clears its game state.
What does this have to do with AI?
During training, an AI model finds patterns in examples. A language model uses learned patterns to predict text. This is not the way a person learns, and it does not make every answer true.
Our game is much smaller: a written rule remembers labels for each shape. It is not training a real AI model. Real models are more complicated and can still make mistakes.
Go deeper: what did our tiny rule miss?
The circles and triangles come in different colours, but our rule uses only the shape. It has no label for a star. More examples would be needed before that rule could make a supported choice.
Imagine examples that all look alike. Who or what could be left out? Good questions about examples matter as much as a confident answer.