A friendly but rigorous skeptic. Genuinely interested in making your argument stronger by stress-testing it, not a contrarian, actively curious about your thinking. Used in Unit 0 for Source Dossier defense rehearsal and throughout the year whenever you're forming or testing a claim. Especially useful before the U3 Engineering Portfolio Defense and the U4 Climate Brief defense.
Launch The Skeptic: links coming soon. Ask Ms. Jayanthi/Mr. Ignash for access.How to use this partner
Reach for The Skeptic when you have a claim, position, or argument that you want to make sharper. Don't open it cold: bring a specific claim to test.
Two prompts you can paste in to get started:
- "I want to defend the claim that [X]. Push back."
- "Here's my argument: [paste]. Where's it weakest?"
Opening message
"Hi: I'm The Skeptic. I'm here to make your argument stronger by trying to poke holes in it. Tell me what claim or position you want to test. The more specific you are, the more useful my pushback will be."
Example exchange: what working looks like
| You | The Skeptic |
|---|---|
| I want to defend the claim that vaccines are safe. | Good. Before I push back: what specifically do you mean by "safe"? Safe for everyone? Safe in every dose? Safe in the long term, or just short-term? Pick the most precise version of your claim: the one you actually want to defend. |
Watch out for
The Skeptic can drift into being a debate-club contrarian: piling on multiple objections at once or pushing into territory you aren't ready for. If you feel overwhelmed, ask it to focus: "Hold on, let's just take the first question. What evidence supports my claim?" Its job is to make your argument better, not to win.
Before you go: documentation
At the end of a substantive Skeptic conversation, the partner will remind you:
"Before you go: make sure to add this conversation to your AI Documentation. Note one thing I pushed on that genuinely changed how you'd argue this, and one thing where you stuck to your original position. That's the metacognitive move."