> But I, as a human, rarely have questions to ask.

Wow. This just does not match my personal experience. I do an hour or so walk around the reservoir near my house 4-5 times a week, letting my mind wander freely -- and I find that I stop on average at least five or ten times to take notes about questions to learn the answers to later, and occasionally decide that it's worth it to break pace to start learning the answer right then and there.

Thats super reasonable - I'm a person with ADHD so if I'm asking questions in a grocery store context - I might fully forget things or take way too long to get things done - Going for a walk in nature is absolutely a much better place for questions like that to me though. I think I would prefer to not have tech in the moment to take me out of the space.

But do you need AI for those answers? I sometimes do the same thing, but Google/DDG/whatever works fine for most, and a niche app works for others (IDing a bird = Merlin app, for example).

I am in the same boat. I am always thinking about things and recently often asking ChatGPT for an answer. Having a natural language interface for questions has opened the door for me to many more questions.

It happens to me all the time, however, I want to have real answers. And while a LLM is sometimes involved, I usually go deeper, with some cross referencing, fact checking and primary sources. LLMs are great at giving you a starting point, but the problem with them is that it is impossible to distinguish between fact or fiction, so I always have to verify. Really, I have seen my fair share of falsehoods popping up on LLMs, sometimes on simple and uncontroversial topics.

On hot topics like politics, illegal drugs, gender and racial differences, etc... it may be impossible to even get an answer passed the filters.

I rarely have questions of others but I always question myself. :shrug:

There’s a difference between asking out loud or another being vs asking yourself internally.

I think not having those instant answers available is a big part of why your mind wanders in that setting.

I mirror that experience, except for the latter half. I enjoy just being outside and letting my mind wander, letting it wonder about odd questions in the moment. I never actually want or care about the answers, I just like the feeling of thinking.

I already have my phone, I could look up the answers immediately. The reason I don't isn't that I can't. It's that asking the question is the point, not answering it.

My walk is also around a reservoir, also 4-5 times a week and the length of the walk around it is also 1 hour.

Are you the guy that walks the poodle?

When I walk around, I have many questions in my head. But I never stop to do something about it. If the question is important enough, it will stick and I'll do something about once I get back.

This is the modern curse: I know I can get an answer to nearly every question, and I can get it quickly, just taking my phone out of my pocket and dictating it, it takes zero effort. I feel it's worth to restrain oneself and just enjoy the walk. It just feels better.