Let me prompt that for you

“Let me Google that for you” - that phrase appeared pretty fast back in the day.

“Let me prompt that for you” is the newer and much more aggressive version of that.
Aggressive, not in the person's sense of saying it, but in its implication. With Google, you had to forage for the information somewhat. LLMs just spit out answers. Given the wealth of information available a prompt away, not doing it

Yeah, I know, I know.

The prompt matters. There can be hallucinations. But it’s pretty decent for most a lot of things.

Google isn’t perfect either. Over the years and with the different algorithm changes, which sites are in the first 10,20,30 pages rotated quite a bit.
For tech specifically, often the articles and blogs that were optimising for SEO - they’re not the best resource; a lot of times, they are not even a good one.

Even if you argue that since the LLM is fed all this bad data, it’s going to just spit it back out. Maybe. I would still have saved time.

Unless it’s an original source of information for something, I’m already not reading those. Most places just reheat yesterday’s dinner.

Opinions and hot takes? Sure. Those can be entertaining to read.
Anything that’s a tutorial or guide that doesn’t have a unique angle? Nah. I’d rather go read the docs, ask an LLM or feed the LLM docs and chat with it. Interpretations of technical works might carry more risk of picking up bad mental models and abstractions. Before, the time savings for rapid learning might have been worth it. Today, not so sure.

It’s not all doom and gloom.
There is a new type of article that has potential, a new take on the old curation type and tutorial type (I think).

An article of “leads”.

Explain the context, add the human touch, and instead of diving deep into technicals, show the way. Give the leads. Share the prompts.
Tell people the starting point, the important concepts, add the important details (starting parameters) for the journey, and that’s it.

It doesn’t mean sharing your personal experience, and the nuance isn’t important! Quite far from it. I’d argue it’s more important than ever and more interesting than ever. It’s an old way of sharing knowledge I’m not convinced stays around. Just point people down the path they need to go - if they care to learn anything, they need to walk it, anyway.

I’ll try doing that. Learn something new and interesting? Do a write-up, but do not focus on heavy technicals and long details. The focus would be to bring clarity if that’s the thing you might be looking for. Then give a detailed map of directions and off you go.

Hopefully this new AI arc is good.