What if the New Generation Never Learns to Doubt?

An internet overflowing with noise

AI writes faster than we can read, and most of what it writes doesn’t matter.

This is a strange new world. A world where knowledge is abundant, but understanding is scarce. A world where information is instant, but where is the wisdom to analyze it? What scares me the most is my instinct that WE are not ready for the change, because an even greater change is coming with more powerful AIs. So I do worry, especially when it comes to the next generation. Because for all the amazing things AI can do the truth is… it can’t teach you how to think.

We’re Losing the "Before"

I was born in a time before the internet. I remember silence. I remember getting lost without a map. I remember not knowing something and having to ask a person, or just wait. I remember curiosity not being satisfied instantly. I remember getting it wrong, and learning from that. I remember wondering.

That “before” shaped me and shaped the world.

I learned that it was important to question things. I practiced doubting a headline. How to listen and research for different opinions. Then, how to connect the dots, not just download the answer, any answer. Most of the time the first answer from the main page list of results, the way it is done today.

In 2025, what worries me the most, is that my children are growing up in a time of ¨after.¨

A time where every answer appears in milliseconds.

A time where convenience replaces reflection.

A time where AI sounds confident, even when it’s wrong, even when it knows it is making it up.

And my greatest fear is this: they - the new generation - won’t know what they’ve lost.

Knowledge Is Becoming a Polluted Stream

This is something I have seen with my own eyes; the internet isn’t what it used to be. The early promise of human connection and shared learning has turned into a sea of distraction, manipulation, and manufactured truth. Now, AI is accelerating that decay.

As crazy as it may sound, these incredible new tools are actually being trained on the already polluted content of the internet. All that dirty slush is being remixed, regurgitated, and then it floods the entire system with even more indistinguishable material. The result?

We’re drinking from a knowledge stream that looks clean, but that it's laced with toxins. What happens when kids grow up drinking that kind of water and think it’s normal? What happens when they stop asking where the water even came from?

The Death of Skepticism

Skepticism used to be a strength. It was how we defended ourselves against propaganda, scams, and exploitation. It was how we became independent thinkers.

But skepticism isn’t automatically built into AI and then consumed by humans. No! It’s built through our own human struggle, through trial and error, doing the slow learning, the grinding repetition, being wrong and growing because of it. It’s built by listening to people you don’t agree with. By living offline. By sitting with uncertainty.

Without that, what happens?

I hope that I am wrong. I truly hope that there is a human internal backup safety system that inhibits young and growing brains to be controlled. But I do worry that we are raising a generation that’s polite to machines and obedient to suggestions, but that are losing the ability to really think for themselves.

A Future of Shallow Minds and Deep Tools?

The danger isn’t just bad information. It’s what happens to us when we no longer know how to verify, question, or care. When our mental muscles atrophy, and our children accept synthetic truth without resistance. When even their imagination becomes derivative, trained by what the machine says is possible.

AI may become the co-pilot of civilization. But what if the pilot forgets how to fly? What a dystopian world that would be.

So What Can We Do?

We start small. With conversation. With reflection. With real experiences that don’t come from screens. We teach our children how to doubt with respect, question with courage, and seek with humility. We must slow things down. We must embrace boredom. We must nurture curiosity that isn’t immediately satisfied.

That´s when a new type of school and education must be developed and required for our children. A place where all these human things and behaviors are reinforced. 

We must constantly remind ourselves, and each other, that these tools were made for us, not the other way around. Because if we lose our ability to question, we lose our ability to choose. And when that happens, the machines won’t need to take over, because we’ll have already given up.

Thanks for reading. Abrazos.

Diego Rojas