this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2023
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AI and similar technology but not for the reasons you may think. As we offload more and more of our human thought onto these machines and algorithms we become more dependent on them, in effect we let them think for us. If we don't control the technology, we let it control us, and by extension we let those who control the technology control us. On some level it feels like that laughably corny Star Trek episode "Spock's brain."
For example, every time someone answers a question with "let me google that for you" I die a little inside. Not only does google give different results for each person, what it displays isn't always going to be the same. You can't say for sure you're pointing them in the right direction. We used to have things called FAQ's, maintained by humans, that were used for this purpose.
People need to get better at finding what they are looking for on Google and critically thinking. All of those FAQs you are talking about are searchable on Google. In fact, how are you supposed to find all of those FAQs without Google or another similar search engine?
My complaint was in the context of someone in a community asking a question relevant to that community, where it is expected the community would have the answer. Telling the questioner snidely to "just google it" trains them to become dependent on the google algorithm, which can show them whatever it feels like at any given time, which may or may not even be the best answer to the question.
I suppose if the community itself has a search engine you could tell them to use that, but better would be to just link them to the relevant FAQ (assuming you don't have the time or energy to personally answer it).
I see what you are saying now. I will agree that it does seem lazy and rude to just tell someone to Google something that they don't know anything about, without at least pointing them to a specific site or article to search for.