alt Hacker NewsContrarian take: I don't feel this way at all.
I end up thinking _more_ about many subjects, analyzing them more deeply, using AI. Before search engines, if I wondered about subject X, it was unlikely I'd have a resource at hand that could really tell me about X. Maybe ask around, see if anyone in my circle had some knowledge or an opinion. But for most topics, there were no options. No one would know what that company makes, or why tungsten in light bulbs, or whatever. And for most questions, I was not going to go to the library or start a full research project. Just too effort-intensive. Post search engines, I could do a little research, if I was really interested. Maybe 50% or 60% of the time get a reasonable answer.
Now using AI I ask a lot more questions: Why tungsten? What is this "yarn works" thing on the map? What is my local high school's per-student budget, and how does that compare to the other school districts in the state? What is this thing? What's its history? Why this not that?
I'm curious and interested in a lot of the world around me. AI doesn't seem to be making me dumber; it seems to be enabling a much higher degree of curiosity and, better yet, a much higher degree of "finding out."
Your curiosity is enabled but is it being best served? You are being fed a single perspective on every question, a singular world view. You do not have the serendipitous exposure to a broad range of ideas and opinions we experience as we meander through information.
You Google about why tungsten is in light bulbs, you find yourself on a website about the history of lightbulbs written by a hobbyist that has spent decades thinking about lightbulbs. You click around, link after link, your world is expanded to include this lightbulb fanatic’s.
Personally, I find LLM answers to questions completely devoid of the substance that actually matters to my curious mind. Sure, when I’m working and need a concrete answer to a specific problem, an LLM can be a great help, but for personal curiosity, to expand my world, they suck.
To me, what you’re describing sounds like learning lots of trivia, not expanding your understanding of the world.