You are correct to state over-reliance on AI as a data source will probably lead to society's intellectual atrophy. One could argue we have been on this path with other things but the whole thing more and more to me looks like eating your own vomit and forcing a smile on your face.
AI will always have a specific narrow focus and will never ever be creative, the best AI proponents can hope for is that the hallucinations will drop to a more unnoticable level.