Comment by ninjagoo

> Those aren't super rare these days, I don't know why arbitrary credentials would matter for this purpose

It's an indicator that that demographic isn't opposed to using AI as a conversational tool and find it useful for that purpose - an instant, "smarter" library, if you will.

> The actual fact was incidental, and this conflict regularly led to impasse where I'd clarify I don't care what the internet says etc.. and I'm fine with that because he wasn't really interested in thought exercises.

Thought exercises are better, imho, when they're grounded in facts. Why wouldn't you care what the facts are? Can one have the same level of discourse about space with someone who isn't aware that the Earth is round and thinks it is flat?

> A concrete hypothetical mundane example might be posing "How do you think the Iran war might impact gas prices here?" and they'd just look up the history and trends, and then kind of stop there. Dull, I want a human response, speculate and build on it, let yourself be wrong.

Color me confused. Are you looking for a panic or doomsday response or? What does "human response" even mean? A human looked at the history and trends, that's that human's response to the question!

Looking up the history and trends, and building on those facts could be a deeper dive into the wonders of economics, an exploration of the interconnected-ness and dependence of the various parts of the economy on oil and gas (fertilizer, plastics, and their downstream industries), where the fractionating plants are, where they get their raw materials from, how tied into futures contracts those are, who's got long-term contracts insulating them from the impact, what's that % of folks insulated for 3 months, 6 months, 12 months etc. etc.

I have to say, asking me to speculate and build on a topic that I know nothing about would invite a 'lookup' response from me as well; that's just (imho) a critical thinker style. Once the lookup is done, as a questioner, may I suggest asking probing questions to move the conversation forward - that's what I do.

Just out of curiosity, are you a D&D player, or a Fantasy or adjacent creative? I'm wondering what sort of nature would want to elicit an ungrounded speculative response, and I can imagine an enjoyer or creator of fantasy looking for a creative, speculative, thought exercise with a real world question as a starting point.