[ventana]

One of the ways not to get LMGTFY / Ask Claude as a response is to provide more information and proof of work when asking a question.

Compare:

— What's the best way of doing X?

— Ask Claude.

vs:

— I thought about this and found there are options A, B, and C of doing X, I like A more but C is the fastest; what do you think?

I believe a normal senior engineer won't suggest to talk to Claude in this case.

[theorchid]

— I thought about this and found there are options A, B, and C of doing X, I like A more but C is the fastest; what do you think?

— Ask Claude.

[hoppp]

Its a way to say I don't care, don't waste my time

[9dev]

That's the malevolent version of it. The alternative might be, I also don't know this from the top of my head and could spend some time to google/ask Claude/read the documentation/familiarize myself with the concrete code and/or problem at hand, but then again so can you and our collective time is better spent if I take care of my problems and you take care of yours, but if you really can't find a solution on your own and still need help please come back to me any time with a very concrete question you need my input on.

[theamk]

Or, in shorter words: "I don't care, stop wasting my time"

I get those kinds of question all the time ("I like A more but C is the fastest; what do you think?"), but when I don't care or don't know, I prefer to say this directly:

"I am not very familiar with this area of the code, so I can't really answer"

"I'd need to do some research for that, but sadly I am pretty busy. But I like simple solutions, it would be nice to do this without yet another microservice of possible"

Just saying "Ask Claude" seems pretty rude.

[anon7000]

Well, it’s fucking annoying. When I’m asking a question and I put time into understanding the context and problem space, and already did some analysis with AI, I’m looking for a human opinion. I want my colleagues who know stuff to use their experience and their brain for a second to help the team.

I don’t need Claude to give a second opinion on something that Claude already ran through. It’s fucking useless and it’s a huge blind spot.

This shit happens when everyone in an organization is expected to use Claude to answer questions and do the initial investigation / analysis. Yeah, I did that. Now let’s get to work as humans and provide our expertise, and not turn it into an AI circle jerk.

[XorNot]

Which is funny because a huge number of people post this in responses to online asynchronous messages, on public forums, when they could also do literally anything else - like close the browser tab.

[hoppp]

Intelligence is outsourced so now people who don't like to think they don't have to do it anymore.

[Barbing]

Wellll lots of those people you’re referring to are human, and when have we ever let it be?!

[watwut]

This exchange sounds like "eff you". I would much rather hear "I don't have opinion" or "I don't know". A person asked you, because they are interested in your opinion. You dont have duty to provide it, but you can just say that without being jerk.

[andy99]

I’m assuming this person did ask in the second way, it’s hard to imagine someone working through a problem that has already tried a bunch of stuff just going in cold and not providing any context and saying “How do I do X?”

Good advice obviously if it’s not being followed already but also likely over-simplifying the problem. Also a normal person on the receiving end would probe a bit about what has already been tried. Which to be fair makes the whole thing a bit weird and does sound more like she’s being brushed off.

[jibal]

It's highly unlikely that the conversation actually happened as reported. At the very least, something was said after "Ask Claude".

[nmstoker]

Yes, the importance of asking a question to demonstrate you've invested effort cannot be overstated.

Without knowing what/how they asked, it's difficult but I would be tempted to suspect this was actually a way to say "please stop asking me questions"

[q8zd3]

I lost track how many times I heard or read "I asked Claude to do X. It seems to work".

[iLoveOncall]

Anyone who recommends to ask an LLM in the first situation will do so in the second because they're a shit engineer.

"Ask the LLM" is not at all a valid answer in a professional context where part of your job is to educate the less experienced, no matter how little effort is put in the question.

[bluefirebrand]

Sometimes part of the education is teaching people how to ask better questions, and that they need to do their research before asking you

[robocat]

"How To Ask Questions The Smart Way" by Eric S. Raymond and Rick Moen is from before AI but still seems relevant.

(HTTP) http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Essays/smart-questions.html

https://archive.ph/duRkf

[teddyh]

Latest version: <http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html>

[iLoveOncall]

Yes, fully agree. "Ask an LLM" does not achieve that.

[bastardoperator]

Agreed, you can also preface the question. I've checked A, B, and C with AI, curious to get your opinion/thoughts?

I don't think anyone in any industry regardless of seniority would redirect you back to AI assuming you're having a genuine conversation.

[yaelwrites]

And yet, here we are. :)

[jibal]

It's highly unlikely that the conversation actually happened as reported. At the very least, something was said after "Ask Claude".

[XorNot]

LMGTFY for you was infuriating because it was 100% of the top Google responses to specific searches.

[Terr_]

Generally I didn't unleash one of those without already being extremely certain that what they needed would be a top result.

However, search has become enshittified, and I don't think LLM chatbots have achieved a similar level of certainty, so it may just be the end of an era for me.