I came across this article this morning, which was published yesterday. Learning via ChatGPT leads to shallower knowledge than using Google search, study finds It takes a look at 7 studies, each with over 10,000 participants. They compared people researching a topic using ChatGPT vs people using Google searches. Then they had those people write advice on those topics based on what they learned. Then other people (who did not know what tool had been used) read the advice and decided whether it was helpful to them. (The topics of advice were things like gardening.)
Every few weeks we see a post on here with someone asking or talking about whether AI LLMs like ChatGPT can be used to help someone learn Godot specifically, and programming in general. This seems to be further evidence that while you can, you won’t know it as well or be able to take it as far as fast.
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Important to note here that this is specifically about using these tools to tell you about things, asking them to do the thing for you will probably be worse as you wouldn’t really learn at all when someone else, or something else, does the task for you, but unlike with a human teacher, or a tutorial, the machine is far more likely to be wrong, and you generally lack the ability to correct that (compared with adding a comment on a tutorial, or asking your teacher to clarify)
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Perfect timing.
I just asked ChatGPT how to achieve something like Unitys AnimationOverrideController in Godot:
It just works.
Edit:
ChatGPT has been useful explaining me certain gamedev/programming related concepts, like dependency injection for example. It often saves time when the docs aren’t very clear about things or you want to know something specific. And sometimes to fix logic when calculating things.
But creating systems never turned out to be very useful.
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So the question then is can you now explain dependency injection to others?
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Great thing.When I was In a game jam, I thought I should try git for the first time to store my game files in a good secure spot.so I installed git and then… I have no idea how to use it.Soo I went to chatgpt and it helped me doing that like it’s very easy.
Now a few weeks later I have no idea how to use that same program I used 6 times during that jam…That’s a real example guys.
And don’t you worry I now know how to use git.
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The study highlights a key limitation of relying on ChatGPT for learning: it tends to produce shallower understanding compared to traditional Google searches. This likely stems from ChatGPT providing concise, synthesized answers rather than encouraging deeper exploration or critical thinking. While it’s a useful tool for quick insights, real mastery—especially in complex fields like programming or Godot development—still demands active research, hands-on practice, and engaging with diverse sources. Using ChatGPT as a supplement rather than a primary learning method is probably the best approach.
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To add to what others have said here I’d say that this is not all that “new” in the sense that reading summaries and similar will always yield shallower knowledge, having knowledge “handed” to you, when you’re not challenged to understand. There’s also the fact that there’s no guarantee that you do understand the deeper implications from the shallow description, or that you’re challenged to think more deeply about it or that it sparks interest to go read more
What I think these services have done is that they’ve provided two things:
- The ability to get these for pretty much any topic you can think of, where before you’d have to be lucky and find an article or online summary etc., or find someone to ask and summarize for you (or ask in a forum etc.)
- It being available instantly, on demand, making some people entirely stop doing actual research or seek out knowledge on topics, trusting the summary they find and not going deeper
It feels very much into the instant gratification and fast, simple, digestible answers culture that we have with modern social media and similar
Ironically people warned the same would happen with the internet itself, making people not pick up books and actually learning, but unlike that mindset that ignores that the internet actually contains a lot of useful information, this one does risk harming people’s genuine curiosity and especially ability to find information themselves (which, to be fair, has been lacking for a long time, partially due to schools not teaching how to look things up in libraries or the internet)
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That’s a great question! 
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