without a doubt yes. I'd encourage you to just try a session on a free chatgpt account, asking questions you think a parent or someone unfamiliar with the space would probably ask.

It will not only answer confidently incorrect, but it will not web search in obvious scenarios where it should.

The words here, aren't meant to be a warning for people in this type of community falling victim to this type of thing, its more for the general public that doesn't grasp the tools they are using, the people that wont ever wander across this article.

This i think is a huge reason we really need to jump into LLM basics classes or something similar as soon as possible. People that others consider "smart" will talk about how great chatgpt or something is, then that person will go try it out because that person they respect must be right, they'll hop on the free model and get an absurdly inferior product and not grasp why. They'll ask something that requires a web search to augment info, not get that web search, and assume the confidently incorrect agent is correct.

The thesis is also I think not entirely about not having that modern info at query time, its more scattered. Someone asks what product they should use to mash potatoes, a tool is suggested. Everyone that asks then receives that same recommendation and instead of having a range of different styles of mashing potatoes, we end up all drifting closer towards one style, and the range of variance in how food is prepared is slowly getting lost.