Kenny Easwaran · Probability and Inductive Logic · k.easwaran@uci.edu
You are welcome to use ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or any other AI assistant to study for this class. Used well, it is one of the better study tools available to you. Used badly, it will feel productive and teach you nothing, and you will find that out during a midterm.
Here is how to use it well.
Download the AI study guide from the course site and upload it at the start of your chat, before you ask anything.
This matters more than you'd think. Without it, the assistant will guess what notation to use and what material to cover, and may not match what we are doing in this class, and what the exams will be graded on. With the guide, it knows our notation, our eight numbered rules, and exactly what's in scope.
Start a new chat each time and re-upload the guide. Assistants lose track of uploaded files in long conversations.
The single biggest determinant of whether this helps you is what you ask for. Copy these.
I'm in week 6 of LPS 31. Make up three new problems of the same type as Section Assignment 5, Problem 3. Don't show me the answers — I'll work them and you check.
Give me five problems where I have to decide whether there's enough information to compute the probability. Mix them up so some are computable and some aren't.
Here's my truth table for this problem and here's my answer. Tell me if it's right, and if not, show me the first row where I went wrong — don't just give me the correct table.
I got 3/7 for this and the answer key says 4/7. Where did I go wrong?
Quiz me on everything from weeks 5 through 7. Ask one question at a time, wait for my answer, and tell me which topics I'm weakest on at the end.
I don't understand conditional probability. Don't explain it yet — give me three short problems first and figure out which step I'm actually getting stuck on.
Typing a grid into a chat window is miserable, and you should never have to. The guide tells your assistant to ask for one column at a time — a four-row column is four keystrokes, less work than writing it by hand.
Drill me on truth tables one column at a time. Ask me how many rows first, then make me tell you which column to compute next before I fill it in.
There's also a Truth Table Trainer on the course site — no AI needed, nothing to install. It handles all four kinds of truth-table question, makes you work out the row count, enumerate the rows, and choose which column to compute next, then checks each column as you go. Start with the assistance checkboxes all on and turn them off one at a time as you get comfortable; when you can finish with all of them off, try exam mode.
The Probability Square on the course site drills the questions where you are given a few probabilities and asked for another one. You label the square, ring the region each given probability refers to, and keep ringing regions until you can read off the answer.
It also drills the part students find hardest: recognising when there isn't enough information. If you claim a value for a region that isn't pinned down, it will show you two complete distributions that both fit everything you were given and still disagree — which is the only really convincing way to see that a question is underdetermined.
Give me five more problems like the ones in the Probability Square, where sometimes there's enough information and sometimes there isn't. Don't tell me which is which.
Explain why ∨ is inclusive, using an example about [something you actually
care about — a video game, a sport, your job, your major].
I understand the formula Pr(a | b) = Pr(a & b) / Pr(b) but I don't have
any intuition for it. Give me a picture.
Give me a timed practice midterm using the sample midterm in the guide as a model, with different numbers. I get 50 minutes. Don't help me while I work. Grade it at the end and tell me what to review.
If fractions slow you down, say so — it's the most common bottleneck in this class and it's very fixable:
I'm slow and error-prone with fractions, especially multiplying and dividing them. Drill me for ten minutes with the kinds of fractions that show up in this course.
The study guide instructs your assistant not to hand you worked solutions to your actual homework. If you paste a homework problem, it should give you a similar problem with different numbers instead.
This is deliberate, and it's not about catching you. Most of your grade comes from three in-person, closed-book, no-devices exams. Nobody is checking whether you copied your homework. But the homework is the only thing standing between you and a midterm where you have to do this cold, by hand, in fifty minutes. A student who copies homework arrives at the exam having never once solved one of these problems themselves, and it goes badly every single time.
What it will happily do: work through unlimited practice problems with you, check your completed work and find your error, explain anything from any angle, walk you through a problem once you've shown it your attempt, and confirm whether an answer you produced is right.
If you've already submitted an assignment and want to understand what you got wrong, just say so.
It's confidently wrong sometimes. These assistants make arithmetic errors and truth-table errors, especially with fractions and especially when doing several problems at once. The guide includes a verified answer key for every sample problem, so cross-check against that. If the assistant contradicts the answer key, the answer key is right.
Ask it to do one problem at a time. When asked to solve several at once, assistants reliably mix up the numbers between problems. This is a known, specific failure.
Don't let it do your arithmetic. In the exam you have a four-function calculator and your own handwriting. If the assistant computes every fraction for you, you're practicing a skill you won't have access to. Do the arithmetic yourself and use it to check.
Reading is not studying. A well-explained answer feels like understanding. It usually isn't. Make yourself produce answers before you see them — that's the part that sticks.
It will agree with you if you push. If you insist an answer is right, many assistants will cave. Don't argue it into agreeing with you; check the answer key or ask your TA.
Come to office hours or discussion section if:
If you use the guide and something in it seems wrong, or your assistant tells you it found an inconsistency, please let me know. It helps me fix it for everyone.