A critical-thinking project · Prototype

Question the tool.
Examine the evidence.

AI can help solve real problems. It can also create serious ethical questions. Explore the benefits, investigate the costs, and decide what you think for yourself.

This is an educational prototype, not a definitive verdict on every AI system. Claims should be checked against the linked sources.

The question behind the question

Who benefits — and who bears the cost?

Technology is never just technology.01 / 05
01 / Potential benefits

What might AI make possible?

Potential benefits are worth examining. They are not guarantees, and they do not automatically settle questions about how a system was built or deployed.

A · ACCESS

More ways to learn

AI tools can explain concepts in different ways, support language practice, and help people brainstorm or organize ideas. Accuracy and accessibility still need to be checked.

B · DISCOVERY

Research support

Some AI methods help researchers analyze complex patterns or prioritize possibilities. Results require expert validation; a fluent answer is not proof of truth.

C · ASSISTANCE

Reducing barriers

Speech, transcription, translation, and other assistive tools may help some people participate more fully. Design quality, cost, privacy, and user needs matter.

Critical question: Who can access these benefits, who controls the tools, and what evidence shows that a particular application actually helps?
02 / Ethical concerns

Progress for whom?

Ethical questions often concern the entire system around a tool: the data used, the people affected, the business model, and the consequences of deployment.

These are categories to investigate, not a claim that every AI product has the same impacts.

Data & consent

Who agreed?

Were personal data or creative works collected and used in ways people understood and consented to? Legal rules and ethical expectations do not always match.

Work & power

Who gets paid?

Automation can change jobs and bargaining power. Ask who gains financially, whose work is displaced, and whether affected communities have a voice.

Fairness

Who is misrepresented?

Systems can make uneven errors or reproduce patterns in their data. Testing must consider different groups and the real consequences of mistakes.

Privacy

What is exposed?

Prompts and uploaded information may be sensitive. Understand a service's data practices before sharing personal, confidential, or identifying details.

Environment

What does it consume?

AI infrastructure uses electricity, hardware, and water across its lifecycle. Impacts vary by model, location, energy source, and how often it is used.

Trust & accountability

Who is responsible?

AI can generate plausible falsehoods and make mistakes at scale. Responsibility should not disappear behind claims that “the algorithm did it.”

03 / Interactive ethics lab

There isn't always a clean answer.

Choose a response to a fictional situation. This activity doesn't score your morality; it makes the trade-offs visible.

Try this: choose the option closest to what you would do, then consider what your choice leaves unresolved.

SCENARIO 01 · CREATIVE WORK

Your group needs artwork for a student project. An AI image tool can make something quickly, but you don't know exactly what training data was used.

What would you do?

04 / Community perspective

What your peers think

Ethical disagreements can be useful when people explain their reasoning and listen to the evidence.

Share your perspective

Submit an opinion for review. Approved responses can then be shared with other visitors.

Publication and privacy notice

AI Under the Microscope is an ongoing educational project. Your opinion, selected question, viewpoint, and submission time will be stored in the project database and reviewed before publication. If approved, your opinion may remain publicly displayed until the website is retired, unless removed earlier. Visitors may copy published responses.

Do not include names, contact details, schools, locations, or other identifying information. Service providers may process technical data, including IP addresses, in their operational logs. Submission and removal endpoints have passed controlled tests. Turnstile verification has been added to submission, but hosting, end-to-end verification, and rate limiting still require testing. Do not invite outside participants until those checks are complete.

Security verification is required to submit an opinion. This uses Cloudflare Turnstile.

Preparing the opinion form…

Loading approved opinions…

Remove your opinion

Have a privacy code from an earlier submission? Enter it here to permanently delete the matching opinion, whether pending or approved. This cannot be undone.

Only approved visitor submissions appear here. Fictional demonstration responses have been removed so they cannot be mistaken for real submissions. Because participation is voluntary and self-selected, these opinions are not a representative survey.

05 / Keep investigating

Don't take this website's word for it.

Start with institutional resources and primary documents. Read the source in context, check its date and scope, and look for credible disagreement.

OECD · AI Principles ↗

Principles for trustworthy AI, including human-centred values, transparency, robustness, and accountability.

These links are starting points, not proof that every claim on this page is settled. Before presenting the website for a grade, open each source, confirm it remains available, and add specific citations beside any factual claims you research further.

06 / Transparency

Put our own process under the microscope.

This website was built with AI assistance. We share what was done, what went wrong, and what still needs work—without asking visitors to read an entire technical transcript.

Human + AI collaboration

Who did what?

ChatGPT assisted with layout, writing, code, and suggested database checks. The human creator selected the project's ethical direction, tested the website, reviewed screenshots, and chose its privacy and publication policies. AI-generated suggestions were not accepted as automatically correct.

Lessons from testing

What did we discover?

An AI-suggested SQL query referred to a nonexistent column and needed correction. A privilege audit exposed an unnecessary TRUNCATE permission, which the creator revoked and verified. These mistakes illustrate why testing and human oversight matter.

Privacy and accountability

How do visitor opinions work?

Submissions enter a pending moderation queue. The creator added a long-term publication notice and required acknowledgment checkbox. Browser testing showed that an unchecked form was blocked; a checked test response was stored as pending with acknowledgment true. A simulated anonymous database insert with acknowledgment false was rejected.

These are specific tests, not a comprehensive security certification. Controlled backend tests confirmed that a submission returned a one-time privacy code and receipt, and that the matching test opinion could be removed using that code. Website integration and a public launch security review, including spam protection, remain unfinished. The recorded tests used developer-created opinions.

06.1 / Development timeline

From prototype to ongoing project.

Key milestones and decisions, presented as an edited summary rather than a verbatim conversation.

01 · Initial prototype

Explore the ethics

Built the benefits, concerns, interactive dilemma, source links, and a demonstration opinions section.

02 · Shared responses

Connect a database

Moved from browser-only demonstration responses to Supabase with pending/approved moderation.

03 · Security review

Test, find, correct

Verified row-level security and role permissions, corrected a failed AI query, and removed an excessive TRUNCATE privilege.

04 · Privacy decisions

Choose long-term disclosure

The creator decided to continue the site beyond the October 21, 2026 school presentation and removed a proposed October 28 submission deadline.

05 · Consent testing

Verify the checkbox

Added a required acknowledgment, confirmed a successful pending submission, and verified that the database rejected a false acknowledgment.

06 · Backend tested

Build submission receipts and removal

After several AI-generated revisions, the creator deployed and tested server-side opinion submission, private code hashing, and removal by code. The test receipt and deletion succeeded; public launch safeguards remain incomplete.

07 · Website integration

Connect receipts and removal forms

The website was updated to call the two Edge Functions rather than allowing browser-side database inserts. A copyable, downloadable receipt and removal form were added. These interface changes still need browser testing before public participation.

Human judgment: the creator insisted on complete, paste-ready code rather than error-prone manual edits. An earlier AI draft incorrectly attempted to call a private database function through a public API; it was corrected to use a server-side database connection. Backend testing was successful, but that is not a security certification.

About this record: this public page summarizes observed tests and decisions. The creator maintains more detailed technical notes privately. The summary is not a complete verbatim transcript and does not guarantee the website is secure.

The goal isn't to outsource your judgment. It's to make your judgment more informed.