alt Hacker News>you just proved that there's no difference between asking you or asking the AI.
Ding ding ding, we have a winner!
Please do not ask me questions that I know nothing more about than AI. Wish there was something like LMGTFY but for AI.
Turns out, there is such a thing as a stupid question after all: any question that a chatbot can answer that winds up wasting the time of a real human being because the asker was too lazy or inconsiderate to use resources that don't waste anyone else's time first.
>If they wanted the generic LLM answer, they'd have gotten it in four seconds without involving you, which is, in fact, easier.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but... while it can be seductively tempting to assume all humans act this logically, I must unfortunately be the one to inform you that, no, they do not, and no, they often don't get the answer that they were able to get themselves in four seconds without me, and instead choose to waste my time instead.
Replies
> any question that a chatbot can answer that winds up wasting the time of a real human being because the asker was too lazy or inconsiderate to use resources that don't waste anyone else's time first.
Neurotypical members of Generation Z and even many millennials perceive question-asking differently than you or I do. If you tell them on Reddit etc. that they should do some of their own research or consult a FAQ (or now an LLM), they’ll respond that the point of asking wasn’t just to get information, it was to spark a conversation and get feeling of community and interaction with other people. Moreover, you may well get dogpiled with downvotes by the rest of the people reading, who will tell you the same thing.
Remember that younger generations were brought up on corporate social media where things like FAQs were discouraged, because the corporation has to maximize engagement and wants people asking the same basic questions again and again. So, the very concept of a FAQ or a search culture is foreign to them. Add to that the social isolation they report, and you can see why they might be subconsciously desperate to throw a low-effort post out there. Ironically, they would probably better served both socially and informationally by old-school forums, but they are hardly aware now that those existed, and their default internet device (the phone) plays badly with old-school forum culture.
Came here to say this -- humans are not always rational actors. I get asked questions all the time, which I have no special knowledge of, and which the asker could have easily Googled or ChatGPTed. And yet...
Typing “I don’t know” saves you more time than asking the AI and pasting the answer.