TALAMANA · THE AI LITERACY MAP FOR ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN · Judgment · AGE 11—15 · FACTUAL · DURABLE

Change one thing at a time

Run the same request twice, because AI tools add a little randomness of their own.

When to use

Any time you want to know which change made the difference. A plant that grew taller. A paper plane that flew further. An AI picture that came out darker. If you changed five things before you looked, the answer is hidden inside the five.

The method

Pick one thing to change. Write it down. Keep everything else as steady as you can — same place, same time, same words, same tool. Run the test. Look at what changed. Now you can say "this caused that" and be believed. If you want to test a second thing, go back to the start and change only that one. One extra step with AI tools: they add a little randomness of their own, so run the same request twice before you trust a difference. If the two runs differ, that difference is the tool's, not yours.

Watch for this

Changing one thing on purpose and a second thing by accident. You moved the plant to the window and watered it more. Now you have two suspects and no answer. Look for the accidental second change before you trust the result.

Try it

Ask an AI image tool for "a small house by a river." Then change one word only — "small" to "tall" — and ask again. Put the two pictures side by side. Everything that differs came from that one word. Now try changing three words at once and notice how much harder it is to say what did what.

Prove it

Design a test with a friend. Say out loud the one thing you will change, and three things you will keep the same. Then say why keeping them the same matters.

How it works

Scientists call this a controlled experiment. The thing you change is the variable; the things you hold steady are the controls. It is the test to use when the question is which change did this? Other good investigations work differently — watching many things at once and looking for patterns — and you will meet those later. Every honest test of an AI tool on this map — does this word matter, does this setting matter — is built on this one habit. Change one thing, look, write it down. The same rule comes back, for revising a brief, as ONE CHANGE AT A TIME on the Brief strand.

What this idea builds on

What this idea opens up

Sources

Open this idea on the map · The complete map · Logika · RBDS AI Lab, India · revised every edition.

Age grows from 11 at the centre to 22 at the edge, and six sectors show the learning strands. Tab into the map and the arrow keys step from idea to idea, following the links where there is one. Enter opens the idea under the cursor, and E reads out its links and the reason recorded on each. Press slash for Search, question mark for the full key list, and Escape to leave. Open Ideas for the complete readable list, including what each idea builds on and what it opens up.

LOGIKA · RBDS AI LAB INDIA
ON-RAMP · AGE 11 · FIRST ENCOUNTERS, NOT GATES — IDEAS · — DEPENDENCIES
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