[jplusequalt]

>For every person/child that just wants the answer there will be at least some that will want to know why

You're correct, but let's be honest here, the majority will use it as a means to get their homework over and done with so they can return to Tik Tok. Is that the society we want to cultivate?

>And these endlessly patient machines are very good at feeding that curiosity

They're also very good at feeding you factually incorrect information. In comparison, a textbook was crafted by experts in their field, and is often fact checked by many more experts before it becomes published.

[MarkusQ]

And the carefully checked textbooks are just as full of factually incorrect information. If you doubt this, look at any textbook from 50+ years ago; they were also carefully checked--more so than today's--and yet contained many things we now know to be incorrect. In fifty years, our present textbooks will look just as bad, if not worse (seriously; look at a modern K-12 textbook).

So the key thing to get across to kids is that argument by authority is an untrustworthy heuristic at best. AI slop can even help with this.