For self-study, it works beautifully. And the way i use it you don't need any subscriptions nor local environments/agents running etc.
I simply use google search's "AI Mode Session" in a separate tab with one per topic. That's it. No security concerns, no nothing.
The "AI Mode" is grafted onto the latest and greatest google search graph and so always uses upto date information on a topic with links to latest sources so you can always jump between AI and the sources.
Simple and Highly Effective. Just make sure that you keep your prompts specific and targeted and use Top-Down with Stepwise-Refinement methodology.
As a concrete example, i recently used it to understand the architecture of what the user was talking about here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50316022 I had the high-level view (to my satisfaction) within ten mins of back-and-forth with AI. The subject is complicated and there was no way i could have gotten the architecture without spending significant amounts of time pre-AI.
2) Learn AI to offload labour but not your brain - AI exhibits "Jagged Intelligence" and is "Probabilistic". So you must confine it within explicit guardrails. Always have the "Map of the entire Forest" in your Head and have AI contribute only in constructing "the Trees within the Forest" and that too where you know the peaks of its jagged intelligence lie.
3) Focus on end-to-end Software Engineering and learn how to do everything yourself with no external dependencies other than AI. Specifically, learn to map Requirements -> Formal Specifications and do Formal Verification against it. You need to become the overall "Systems Engineer" (as it used to designated in the old days).
4) In addition, if you use AI to learn about business functions viz. marketing/sales, accounting, legal etc. you are golden and can setup yourself easily as a OPC.
5) Because AI can go deep in any one particular area, cultivating cross and inter disciplinary knowledge, studies, skills are more important today. You must truly build a "M/T" shaped skillset.
6) Always keep in mind Mark Twain's dictum viz. "I never allowed my Schooling to interfere with my Education". AI is an excellent Socratic dialogue partner to learn anything quickly. Practice Maieutic Prompting with AI so you can appropriately constrain it and accelerate your learning curve.
7) Never ever stop learning something actively (can be Mental, Verbal or Physical). The subject you are learning can be anything at all but the key is to do it with mindful self-effort. It has been shown that people who are curious, continuously learning and figuring things out for themselves keep their mental acuity well into old age.