“Let me google that for you” regularly rang in my head when I was asked a vaguely technology related question that I didn’t have the answer to but know how to find it. I’d diplomatically explain that it was a good question, but not one that I hold the answer to. “If I were you, I think the best course of action I’d take is googling it”, not as a smart-alec to get them to go away, but as a gentle way of pointing out to them that my solution to this problem is an action that you are just as capable of doing: Google it.
It took me years to realize that what I considered “common sense” or basic competency with a computer was actually a practiced and achieved skill won from years of self-initiated learning on the internet. When I was around 15, I saw and heard my cousin (who was not a piano player) playing a beautiful song on the piano. After I cajoled him for a few minutes to reveal his secret to me of how he learned it, he pointed out to I could learn to play piano songs from watching tutorials on YouTube. This absolutely blew my mind and the scope of the kind of thing I thought the web was useful for quadrupled in my mind.
Before that it was photoshop. I’d stay up deep into the night photoshopping a picture of myself onto LIFE magazine, or editing my brother’s head onto a photo of Jay-Z and Beyonce. After years of learning graphic design, web design, piano, guitar, html, css, js, spanish, proficiency in my favorite games, etc. I’d refined the ability to demand of a search engine the answer to a question that no one in my life, no one I knew personally could answer for me.
That ability to discern among a sea of ads (admittedly there were fewer search results in my day) a valid, useful answer to my questions helped me learn the skills that I now use to make a living (web development). Even my back-up plan for making a living (music) and hobbies are founded on or enabled by the ability to google proficiently.
That makes it all the more strange to think that google-fu is now obsolete. That you can ask AI a poorly worded question and have it give you a useful answer. It’s unclear to me whether this means a transition from “Let me google that for you” to “Let me ChatGPT that for you” or if there’s still real value in understanding how to frame your questions.
It’s more important than ever to know what kinds of questions you should be placing at the feet of the internet. For example, how to get a grease stain out of silk v.s. whether or not you should break up with your boyfriend 😬. That said, it’s also clear that you can ask an LLM a question with much less effort or with having to translate it into language that a search engine understands.
This aspect of the wave of changes being brought on us (with or against our will) is a net positive, I think. I do wonder though, is there an equivalent river dividing those who know how to use AI v.s. those who essentially ask others to use it for them? What is that divide made up of (knowledge of the tool, dominance of the written word, simple practice — hours logged — using AI)?