Trust & truth · what AI doesn't know
Date awareness
30-second gist~30s read
Most AI models stopped reading the world at a fixed date — their training cutoff. After that date, they don't know what happened unless someone tells them, or they've been wired up to search the web in real time.
Ask the AI today's date or for current prices and you may get a confident answer from a year or two ago. A simple "as of when?" usually catches it.
If you want more
What to ask, when it matters
- "What's your training cutoff?" Most chatbots will tell you.
- "As of when is this answer accurate?" A useful framing for research.
- "Can you check the web for this?" Some AIs can; some can't. Knowing which is half the battle.
Things to assume are stale
Prices, stock data, sports scores, the news, who's in office, what app version is current, what's been deprecated, whether a company is still in business, whether a law has changed. If the question has a "today" answer, the AI's answer is probably not today's.