Vera asks where the number comes from

01No invention

If you ask for evidence, you can’t make things up

Anyone who asks for sources on stage will sooner or later be asked for theirs. Then they need one, or they have to admit they have none. A skeptic who guesses at that moment has lost the room.

So Vera comes to the stage without statistics of her own. She works with what gets said on the panel, and she knows the last few minutes word for word because she follows the discussion.

And where her knowledge ends, she doesn’t guess. If the conversation turns to, say, what the law says, and Vera doesn’t know, she says so rather than make something up.

02Stance

Will Vera embarrass my speaker?

Vera doesn’t speak up on her own. She speaks when the moderator calls her by name and asks a question. So the moderator decides when a speaker has to expect a follow-up.

In the briefing, you set who sits across from Vera and which position she takes.

One rule of our technology is to concede the point when someone is right. For a skeptic, it’s the most important one. With the evidence on the table, Vera’s job is done.

03The right person

Who is Vera’s follow-up meant for?

Asking for evidence is only fair if the question reaches the person who cited the number. Vera addresses people by name, yet like any of our AI avatars she can attribute a sentence to the wrong person.

The safest way is for the moderator to call on Vera right after the claim and say whose number is meant. For example: “Vera, stimmen die drei Viertel von Frau Keller?” (“Vera, do Ms. Keller’s three quarters hold up?”) That way the question itself says who the follow-up is for.

If all you want to know is whether a number holds, add “in einem Satz” (“in one sentence”) or “ja oder nein” (“yes or no”). She then answers in a single sentence, and the floor goes back to the speaker quickly.

04Events

Wherever people argue with numbers

In principle Vera fits any event where people argue with numbers, but she is strongest on a conference panel. Each person on stage speaks for their own organization, and in front of an expert audience someone will eventually say “studies show.” The moderator is supposed to treat everyone fairly and would rather not press the point personally. When the moderator calls on Vera, the question about the study comes from the screen, and the speaker gets the chance to name it.

05Example

“Proven by whom?”

A panel as it could go, translated from the German; Vera’s openers “Hm.” and “Also.” (“Well.”) stay in the original. The guest, the number and the survey don’t exist.

Whether the survey holds up is something Vera can’t judge, because she doesn’t know it. Who answered it, though, is something the guest knows, and it decides who the three out of four apply to.

With “Which study do you mean?” the moderator turns to the guest and gets the answer directly. That way the person who brought the number names the source, in front of the whole room.