Compute your family’s personal inflation rate
The official inflation number is an average of everyone — your family’s is different. Reconstruct 5-10-year-old prices for 10 items your family buys, have AI set up the weighted maths — then redo it yourself — and compute YOUR inflation vs. the official CPI.
Posted by The AI Internships
The work brief
- 01Pick 10 items your family has bought for years: milk, your school fees, a haircut, petrol, a movie ticket, atta, the family’s phone recharge.
- 02Reconstruct old prices: old receipts/diaries are gold; parents’ memories must be cross-checked against a second source (archived news, old price lists, RBI/government series) — note your confidence per item.
- 03Compute per-item inflation and your weighted family rate: have AI set up and explain the weighting formula, then redo the arithmetic yourself — AI fumbles numbers.
- 04Compare against the official CPI for the same period (link the official source) and explain the gap.
What you’ll produce
Submission standard
Submit the price table as CSV with per-item source and confidence, the official CPI link, your computed rate, and the gap explanation. Include your AI workflow: your prompts and any miscalculation you caught. Add a photo of at least one real old receipt, diary page, or archived price list backing one of your reconstructed prices, matching that CSV row.
The table as CSV: item, old price, old-price source + confidence, today’s price, % change
For each item: old price, a specific source (receipt photo, archived link, or named person + relationship), a confidence rating, today's price and % change. At least one old price must be backed by the photo you attach.
CSV dataRequiredOfficial CPI source for your comparison period
Public linkRequiredYour weighted family inflation rate — show the weighting and the maths
Written responseRequiredYour rate vs. official CPI: the gap, and the story of why your family’s basket differs
Written responseRequired
You’ll complete these inside your private workspace.
What you must submit as proof
This brief requires evidence an AI can’t fabricate.
A photo of at least one real old receipt / diary page / price list (or an archived screenshot) backing one of your reconstructed prices
The item and old price shown must match a row in your CSV. Cover any name, address, or account number on the receipt or diary page first.
Image uploadRequired
Submissions without this evidence cannot be submitted.
Protect other people in your proof. Blur faces, names, phone numbers and email addresses before you upload, and refer to anyone you worked with by role or number ("Listener 1", "the stall owner"). Your proof is only ever used to check your work — it is never published, never appears on your certificate, and is never shown in your public portfolio.
How your work is evaluated
The passing benchmark is 70/100.
Price archaeology
29%Old prices are sourced and confidence-rated, memories cross-checked.
Computation
29%Per-item changes and the weighted rate are computed correctly.
Gap insight
14%The CPI comparison uses the real official number and the explanation is sound.
Anchored old prices
29%At least one old price is backed by a photographed receipt/archival source matching the CSV, the CPI comparison uses the real fetched official figure, and memory-only prices are marked low-confidence. A table with no documentable anchor = fail.
How we grade your AI usage
Using AI is the point — it’s the skill this certificate proves. You’ll answer three short questions about how you used it: what you asked, what was wrong with its first answer, and what you changed. Specific, honest answers score high. “I pasted the brief and submitted the answer” scores near zero.