I grew up never needing paper maps. Once I got my license, GPS was ubiquitous. Most modern paper maps are quite the same as Google Maps or equivalents would be though. The underlying core material is the same so I don't think most people would struggle to read it.
I think learning and critical thinking are skills in and of themselves and if you have a magic answering machine that does not require these skills to get an answer (even an incorrect one), it's gonna be a problem. There are already plenty of people that will repeat whatever made up story they hear on social media. With the way LLMs hallucinate and even when corrected double down, it's not going to make it better.
>Most modern paper maps are quite the same as Google Maps or equivalents would be though. The underlying core material is the same so I don't think most people would struggle to read it.
That's absolutely not the case, paper maps don't have a blue dot showing your current location. Paper maps are full of symbols, conventions, they have a fixed scale...
Last year I bought a couple of paper maps and went hiking. And although I am trained in reading paper maps and orientating myself, and the area itself was not that wild and was full of features, still I had moments when I got lost, when I had to backtrack and when I had to make a real effort to translate the map. Great fun, though.
Relevant game that was posted recently:
3D Army Land Navigation Courses - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43624799 - April 2025 (46 comments)