[Waterluvian]

AI immediately gives me the same answer. I can’t tell if I like this easy access to detail or lament the growing irrelevance of “social internet” for these kinds of things.

It reminds me of pre-phone disagreements among pals. You’d argue and argue and maybe eventually agree to disagree. Today someone just looks up the trivia and it’s all over.

[pimlottc]

Of course, the only reason AI knows about it is because one human posted it online because they wanted to share a good story with another human

[justusthane]

I really worry about AI leading to the information death of the internet. If everyone is getting their info from AI, rather than actually reading websites/blogs/forums, is there any incentive for posting things like this on the internet in the first place?

[variadix]

Even worse, people will discuss/diagnose/troubleshoot with their LLM of choice, some of which will be valuable, and the only way to get access to said information will be through the LLM provider’s paywall. I think we are entering an information dark age, for many reasons, that will likely only get worse from here on.

[bdcravens]

I don't know if I'm unique in this, but I find myself asking people I know about things that I know I can easily lookup faster. At this point it's more a social ritual than actual information gathering.

[order-matters]

same here, but only when it feels like good conversation or is a subject we already discuss. Especially if youre in the same room, then it can become a little trivia game and if no one knows then someone can look it up

related note, my girlfriend is bilingual with spanish, and i only have some old high school classes of spanish to go off of, so whenever she texts me a word i dont recognize i ask her what it means. Aside from helping me understand, she gets a peek into my literacy level (which is admittedly pretty low), i can call out the word when its used again, and i get the impression she likes teaching me these little things.

extending the lesson beyond our little ritual, when you ask another person for the information it goes beyond being useful to each other. it is a bid for connection, and a display that you trust them and their opinion/knowledge on the subject.

[seedboot]

It's just like we evolved to be social creatures!

[MisterTea]

> AI immediately gives me the same answer.

"The search engine found the answer too" is not an interesting response.

[dylan604]

In the early days of the smart phone, I had heard it referred to as the Bar Bet Settler 5000. It was pulled out of one's pocket and with its web browser one would use Google's search page to find information to settle the bet. Then, those smart phones got infected with social media apps and the Bar Bet Settler 5000 went the way of the dodo.

[robgibbons]

It's worth pointing out that Google's AI got its answer from this HN post and Tumblr posts referencing this post

[Forgeties79]

As more people offload their search/mental effort to LLM’s and fewer people take the time to answer these obscure questions, unfortunately we will simply lose the fun portion while making LLM’s incapable of answering them. So good news is you don’t have to make a decision!

[nkrisc]

Keep thinking. Where did the AI get the info from?