Prompt It

Lately I’ve noticed something about myself: before asking someone who actually knows about a topic, I ask AI first. Things I would have messaged a friend about a few years ago now go to ChatGPT. Sometimes the answer is good enough, and I never ask the person at all.

Google caused a similar shift. At some point, “Google it” became the default response to simple questions. Instead of asking someone, you were expected to look it up yourself. But Google still required some effort. You had to search, open a few links, compare answers, and decide what made sense. With AI, you just ask. If you don’t understand, you ask again. Most of the time, a few minutes is enough to get an answer you’re satisfied with.

That’s where I think the real difference starts. AI isn’t only taking questions away from Google. It’s also taking questions away from people.

This gets more interesting at work. In an office, if you didn’t understand something, you might ask the person sitting next to you. In remote work, you’d post it in Slack. Sometimes that small question would turn into a longer conversation, and you would learn something you weren’t even asking about. Now it’s much easier to paste the code, error, or concept into a model and keep working.