[masto]

I remember RPI had something like this in the 1990s. I can't remember what it was called though. But I do remember how impressed everyone was: if you call this phone number, they can answer ANY question!

I believe those of us who were around from then to now experienced peak information. We went from having to look things up in libraries to being able to find anything with a Google search. We're on the downward slope now. Business models have changed, spamvertisers are winning the war against search, and generative AI slop is already the dominant source of "content", ensuring the genie can never be put back. This is not an anti-AI rant, it is just an acknowledgement that like so many things, we were foolish to think that access to information was just going to keep getting better. I did not expect that in my lifetime, I would see the best it was ever going to be.

Maybe in the future, calling a trained human for help will be the only way to sort through the mountain of infogarbage to find something. Or we'll have to go back to the library.

[bee_rider]

I remember “learning to use the library” was a thing growing up in the 90’s. It was funny because we’d come far along enough with the internet stuff that even the adults teaching this basically knew it was going to be a very niche skill. But still, something that every educated person was supposed to know how to do.

[ryukafalz]

That's still an important skill! You might think that everything that can be digitized has been and is easily available online, but that's not the case. Especially so for more obscure books and publications that are mostly relevant to your local area.

When I moved to my current town and visited their library, I very quickly found some books written about the local area for which not much info existed online. It's a great way to spend some time if you're into that kind of thing!

[graemep]

Sadly, I agree with you.

More optimistically, I hope doubt about know whether you are dealing with a real person or an LLM will encourage people to be more social offline.