[zephen]

Not at all.

A lmgtfy link can be useful, even if rude.

It's teaching someone to fish.

Sharing an LLM output is simultaneously pretentious and unhelpful. To the OP's point, some might not consider it rude, but I'd rather someone be rude and helpful, rather than pretentious and unhelpful.

tl;dr -- No, it's much, much worse than an lmgtfy link

[olsondv]

Maybe 15 years ago it was helpful. Google is so ubiquitous that lmgtfy has gotten even more passive aggressive as time’s gone on.

[zephen]

It's always been passive-aggressive.

But, if done properly (e.g. vetting that the top link is actually useful, after basically using the same words in the query that you were being asked), it's a genuine reminder that google exists, can be useful, and should often be consulted before you bother someone else.

It's a teaching moment.

Prompting AI and regurgitating the slop is more akin to googling and cutting and pasting the answer. Instead of making the statement "you can do better next time" it's pretending you are an oracle with supreme super-secret knowledge.

I suppose if it fools the querent, it's all good. But, for example, if I ask you a question because I want your opinion, and I receive AI slop in return, I have just been informed that you don't even value your own opinion.

If I really asked a stupid enough question to merit lmgtfy snark, I'd appreciate the snark. If you're not even confident enough in your own opinion to snark at me, you've just taught me something, but it's probably not a lesson that will do you any long-term good.