for a huge amount of "non tech-people", the thing is:

- they mainly look at the first Google result and sometimes if it looks "not convincing" the next few. Especially on a phone where the screen space will cut out most results without scrolling.

- a lot of them write (partial) questions instead of "search queries"

- the first result is an AI response which is very good at being "convincing looking" even if it's plain wrong. (And the others they might look at are nearly guaranteed bought.)

soooo

I don't think much changes for most people.

Sure Google Search AI response links some sources (but not many and it's not that rare for them to not really be sources for the _full_ answer...).

But so do (some) AI agents.

Through the naivety with which I see people trusting AI is very scary.

This makes me wonder if following statement:

> Of 139 studies on the effect of AI on critical thinking, 67 reported only positive effects of AI use.

is a side effect of the studies using sub-par methodology or if I have some observation bias.

Like the problem is many people filer trust by "who they ask", "if the question is hard", "if people might have a reason to lie". But the problem is AI works so differently that you can't trust it in _any_ question, even causal questions where (close to) no westerner(^1) would consider lying to you and everyone would either know they don't know or have the right answer...

(^1): Some cultures for "politeness" reasons value "giving a answer" over "saying I don't know", especially if the person won't see you again. That is getting much better AFIK in such cultures but can be a problem when e.g. asking for the way...