Not sure if I'm missing something but if the authors claim:
1. That chatbots don't understand what they are producing -> a search engine doesn't either.
2. The benefit of search is that you engage in sense-making -> you actually need to do that with a chatbot too.
3. You would want access to the sources -> that's already fixed for today's chatbots (see perplexity.ai, for example, which offers links next to its claims).
4. We may trust chatbots more easily because of their language: we already have that problem with search results.
I understand the idea that there will not be an ever-knowing AI and we will probably don't even want one. But what we have today seems an improvement over a search engine (not necessarily a replacement).
1. That chatbots don't understand what they are producing -> a search engine doesn't either.
2. The benefit of search is that you engage in sense-making -> you actually need to do that with a chatbot too.
3. You would want access to the sources -> that's already fixed for today's chatbots (see perplexity.ai, for example, which offers links next to its claims).
4. We may trust chatbots more easily because of their language: we already have that problem with search results.
I understand the idea that there will not be an ever-knowing AI and we will probably don't even want one. But what we have today seems an improvement over a search engine (not necessarily a replacement).