AI blowing us away with its superhuman abilities is cool, but that's the tip of the iceberg. The real magic of AI, especially in search, is its availability and affordability.

With traditional search engines, you still have to dig and check a few sites before finding what you're looking for. This helps ensure the source is trustworthy and allows you to explore and form your own opinions. (Not everyone does this, but the option is there.)

AI bots, on the other hand, give us quick, averaged, neutral, and seemingly accurate answers that may lead us to accept their output without a second thought.   Considering that many people are already taking medical advice from random websites and finding truth in social media posts, imagine how trustworthy an AI chatbot can be.

As AI-based search becomes ubiquitous (a change we rarely see coming),  more people will rely on it as their one-stop shop for answers, ideas, and information, which raises questions about our dependence on them and our tendency to trust their solutions blindly.  Much more than we do now with Google.

This is the beginning of a cultural shift. As users living through it, we are responsible for maintaining a balance between its convenience and the value of forming our own opinions.  Not doing so puts our curiosity and critical thinking abilities at risk.

So is not about AI replacing us. It’s using it to enhance our abilities while relying on our critical thinking and curiosity to keep learning and innovating.

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Originally posted at: danielbernal.co