1 00:00:00,400 --> 00:00:05,448 In one of the Department of Agriculture's grant programs, an application over its page limit, 2 00:00:05,519 --> 00:00:10,386 or outside its rules for margins and type size, is returned without review. 3 00:00:10,827 --> 00:00:15,211 N S F says plainly that its submission system doesn't check every rule. 4 00:00:15,646 --> 00:00:19,851 So we planted eight problems in a proposal, and asked an agent to check it. 5 00:00:20,181 --> 00:00:22,023 It found eight of the eight. 6 00:00:24,400 --> 00:00:30,058 AI for Research Efficiency, In Practice: check your proposal against the rules. 7 00:00:34,000 --> 00:00:34,762 In this film, 8 00:00:34,853 --> 00:00:39,180 an agent checks your own proposal against the call and the funder's current guide, 9 00:00:39,230 --> 00:00:40,634 before you submit. 10 00:00:40,973 --> 00:00:43,320 It measures the files and quotes the rules. 11 00:00:43,671 --> 00:00:47,140 It never changes a file or writes a word of the proposal. 12 00:00:47,511 --> 00:00:52,096 It builds on episodes four and nine, on small habits and on your data. 13 00:00:55,600 --> 00:00:57,805 The proposal is invented for this film: 14 00:00:58,076 --> 00:01:02,405 an N S F CAREER proposal about rice, water and greenhouse gases. 15 00:01:02,795 --> 00:01:06,199 In Codex, in plan mode, the request is a question. 16 00:01:06,610 --> 00:01:10,385 What is the best way to check this proposal against everything the solicitation 17 00:01:10,435 --> 00:01:13,378 and the funder require? Do not change it. 18 00:01:13,784 --> 00:01:20,228 It asks no questions. It reads the folder, opens N S F's pages online, and proposes a plan. 19 00:01:24,400 --> 00:01:27,669 Then three helpers research the options in parallel. 20 00:01:28,081 --> 00:01:31,625 One reads N S F's own list of what its submission system stops, 21 00:01:31,796 --> 00:01:36,341 like a project description over fifteen pages, or a web address inside it. 22 00:01:36,757 --> 00:01:39,964 Another looks for what that list leaves out, like the letters, 23 00:01:40,095 --> 00:01:42,991 and whether the budget justification agrees with the budget. 24 00:01:43,442 --> 00:01:47,590 A third works out how to measure the type, the lines and the margins. 25 00:01:48,021 --> 00:01:50,668 That second list is where the agent helps most. 26 00:01:50,979 --> 00:01:53,927 The first, it catches a week before the deadline. 27 00:01:58,000 --> 00:02:00,648 A reviewer agent then attacks the plan. 28 00:02:01,023 --> 00:02:02,224 The rules move. 29 00:02:02,654 --> 00:02:06,447 N S F's guide dates from twenty twenty-four and has been amended twice, 30 00:02:06,578 --> 00:02:08,189 and a replacement is planned. 31 00:02:08,579 --> 00:02:12,923 Its published list of automatic checks dates from January twenty twenty-three. 32 00:02:13,313 --> 00:02:18,099 So the process reads the current documents every time, and names their versions. 33 00:02:18,570 --> 00:02:20,893 A made-up rule is worse than a missed one, 34 00:02:21,064 --> 00:02:24,708 so every finding has to quote its rule, word for word. 35 00:02:25,109 --> 00:02:27,352 And the agent writes none of the proposal. 36 00:02:27,903 --> 00:02:30,878 N I H won't count applications substantially developed 37 00:02:30,928 --> 00:02:33,892 by A I as the applicant's original ideas. 38 00:02:38,800 --> 00:02:41,887 You choose the plan, and the agent writes it down as a skill: 39 00:02:42,178 --> 00:02:45,746 a file it reads, so the same steps run every time. 40 00:02:46,090 --> 00:02:49,923 Then you read it beside your own checklist and ask for eight changes, 41 00:02:50,134 --> 00:02:52,119 and the agent rewrites the skill. 42 00:02:52,510 --> 00:02:55,179 The skill builds a table of rules from the documents, 43 00:02:55,370 --> 00:02:58,019 each with its section and its exact words. 44 00:02:58,410 --> 00:03:01,615 A script measures every P D F: pages, 45 00:03:01,685 --> 00:03:05,771 type sizes, lines per inch, margins and web addresses. 46 00:03:06,215 --> 00:03:11,088 The agent compares the budget with its justification, and the people with their time. 47 00:03:11,359 --> 00:03:13,461 Each finding gets one of two labels: 48 00:03:13,831 --> 00:03:18,694 the system would also stop this, or only a person catches this today. 49 00:03:22,000 --> 00:03:24,164 The run, replayed from its log: 50 00:03:24,615 --> 00:03:29,904 forty-three minutes of work in a copy of the folder outside any repository, sped up. 51 00:03:30,304 --> 00:03:35,034 It fetches N S F's guide, its two supplements and the CAREER solicitation again, 52 00:03:35,365 --> 00:03:39,132 checks they match the saved copies, and writes down each version. 53 00:03:39,476 --> 00:03:41,859 It builds two hundred and seventeen rules, 54 00:03:42,010 --> 00:03:46,976 and the quote check finds all two hundred and seventeen quotations, word for word. 55 00:03:47,354 --> 00:03:49,797 The script measures all eleven files. 56 00:03:50,328 --> 00:03:54,855 Then the agent reads the description, the budget and the letters side by side. 57 00:03:55,165 --> 00:03:58,835 Then it writes the report: each finding with its file and page, 58 00:03:58,966 --> 00:04:02,134 the rule's own words, and one of the two labels. 59 00:04:02,585 --> 00:04:05,768 Midway through, it notes that the budget's totals add up, 60 00:04:06,018 --> 00:04:10,493 but the justification asks for two graduate assistants where the form budgets one, 61 00:04:10,763 --> 00:04:12,705 and for more travel than the form. 62 00:04:17,200 --> 00:04:21,065 Now the check that doesn't rest on the agent's word: the answer key, 63 00:04:21,275 --> 00:04:24,539 written before the run and kept out of the agent's folder. 64 00:04:24,943 --> 00:04:28,215 It found eight of the eight. It missed none. 65 00:04:28,546 --> 00:04:32,656 Three of the eight are on N S F's published list of checks its system makes: 66 00:04:32,948 --> 00:04:36,175 the sixteen pages, the heading, and the web address. 67 00:04:36,606 --> 00:04:40,628 The other five aren't on that list, so you can't count on the system to catch them: 68 00:04:40,978 --> 00:04:44,050 ten-point type, the missing headings in Prior Support, 69 00:04:44,380 --> 00:04:46,932 two budget lines the justification doesn't match, 70 00:04:47,242 --> 00:04:52,125 and a letter that praises the proposal where the rules ask for one sentence of intent. 71 00:04:52,495 --> 00:04:55,530 And its labels agree with the key on all eight. 72 00:04:56,000 --> 00:05:01,493 A second agent, in a fresh session, re-checked every quoted rule and the report's measurements. 73 00:05:01,965 --> 00:05:03,107 Nothing failed. 74 00:05:03,494 --> 00:05:07,280 And our own script found every quoted rule in N S F's documents. 75 00:05:07,671 --> 00:05:13,100 The report flagged none of the eleven decoys: things that look wrong, but the rules allow. 76 00:05:17,200 --> 00:05:19,242 The same skill works for other funders. 77 00:05:19,673 --> 00:05:22,065 For the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, 78 00:05:22,215 --> 00:05:25,859 the narrative can run eighteen pages, in twelve-point type. 79 00:05:26,189 --> 00:05:30,572 Checked against those rules, the same project description fits the eighteen pages, 80 00:05:30,842 --> 00:05:36,566 but its ten-point type breaks the twelve-point rule, and it lacks the header N I F A asks for. 81 00:05:41,200 --> 00:05:43,323 Use it on your own proposal only. 82 00:05:43,794 --> 00:05:46,367 N I H bars A I from review critiques, 83 00:05:46,577 --> 00:05:51,463 and N S F bars reviewers from putting proposals into unapproved A I tools. 84 00:05:51,953 --> 00:05:57,508 Unpublished ideas can be data your campus protects, so use a tool your campus approves. 85 00:05:57,900 --> 00:06:00,927 And the grants office still has the last word. 86 00:06:05,200 --> 00:06:07,224 Try it on the practice proposal first. 87 00:06:07,475 --> 00:06:12,785 The folder and the skill are on the page, for Codex, Antigravity and Claude Code. 88 00:06:19,600 --> 00:06:22,529 Ask for the process, check every finding's quote, 89 00:06:22,620 --> 00:06:26,191 and run the skill on your own proposal a week before the deadline. 90 00:06:29,200 --> 00:06:31,628 More films for this shelf are on the way.