If you ask someone’s opinion or expertise, and they answer “ChatGPT says…”, it can seem obnoxious.
I’m going to propose a hypothesis on why this is happening, at least some of the time. This is based upon personal experience1 frequently being asked for input and advice, usually technology related, and where experience has taught me to offer minimal effort responses2 to the small number of people who make answering sincerely something I regret.
The Askholes Walk Among Us
Some people are askholes. People give the chatbot response as a defensive response to these people, and instead of learning that this is a consequence of their own behaviour, they hold it as a fault of everyone else.
I’m sticking with the name askhole even if I’m going to slightly redefine it from the “does the opposite of what the answer you give” definition found in the Urban Dictionary.
I actually don’t care if someone asks my opinion and does the opposite. That’s okay, presuming it was good intentioned and isn’t just being contrarian.
If, for example, you ask me what language/stack to use for a specific need and I answer Rust and you end up using Go, that’s okay and it’s a complex, many-factorial decision that has many possible good solutions. I have no defensiveness or skin in the game, and I simply don’t care. You asked my educated, experienced opinion, you weighed it with your own positions, beliefs and stakes, and made a choice. My ego is in no way tied to the final decision you make.
It’s your burden to bear so that’s your call.
Similarly, getting multiple opinions is okay. That’s how things should work, and this should threaten no one. Only you have the full picture and you bear the consequences of the decision in a rational situation.
None of these are a problem.
Instead, someone becomes an askhole when they try to convert a selfless contribution of expertise, taste or opinion into a liability or an obligation. When they make someone regret giving an opinion or expertise, and where every answer given hangs like the sword of Damocles, to be used against the person foolish enough to give them a sincere answer. However correct and well-suited the answer is, somehow they will regret giving the askhole any input or advice3.
An example is when giving your opinion/expertise involuntarily commits you to an argument you have no interest in. An askhole likes pitting parties against each other, magnifying differences and fomenting conflict, and demanding that each explain themselves and counter if not diminish the other.
“Tell me why {X} is wrong in their statement that what you said is wrong, and…”.
If you’re paying me for my advice in a professional relationship, I’ll happily do this and kind of savour it4. If, on the other hand, we’re acquaintances and you asked me which smartphone I would recommend and I give you my opinion(s), our exchange is complete and you’re welcome. When you come back with the nugget that someone else said my opinion is crap5 and they think so-and-so, my eyes glaze over and I have learned to put you in the “Gemini says…” response bucket from that point forward.
You have betrayed yourself to be an askhole. You made a solicitation about an opinion into a liability6, implying that I am enslaved by your decision process because I made the mistake of sincerely offering up advice. I am not.
Similarly, in the prior Rust v Go scenario, an askhole is the guy who holds every single problem7 from that point forward as something I am responsible to solve if they went with my suggestion, and if they chose otherwise, well then that somehow refutes my advice and sits as a pox on my expertise.
“Hey, remember when you told me to use Rust? Well I used Go and it turned out fine, so…”
Askholes do this. Askholes get themselves put in the “Gemini says…” bucket, to which they write a big social media post complaining that no one wants to respond sincerely anymore. Never do they wonder if their own behaviour got them in that place.
And the final category of askholes are the people who ask lazy questions for the purpose of asking the question. Basically just to hear their own voice, so to speak. This might seem like it’s just good conversation and soliciting interactions, but if you actually commit time to sincerely answering their question, and then discover it was just a flippant thing they don’t actually care about at all, it can feel like abuse. It encourages one to just tell them to Google It next time, and if you’re too cowardly to say that, then paste the “ChatGPT says…” text to them.
Footnotes
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Maybe I’m generalizing too much. I haven’t done a study on this, and completely base this observation on my own experiences. ↩
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“What if one of those people read this post?” - okay? If I am replying with a chatbot answer, I’m being pretty explicit about the situation. There is no subtlety at play. ↩
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I will risk citing my wife in this discussion: my wife is an askhole specifically and only in regard to Fantasy Football roster choices. “Should I pick”, “should I play”, “should I bench” type questions. There is literally no upside to giving sincere input. Only downsides. “Well, Gemini says…” ↩
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Honestly, probably too much. In certain, appropriate situations I love an opinion bake off. Casual discussions are not an appropriate situation. ↩
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On the same theme, if someone tells me they asked someone’s opinion on something and then slurs the person for their position, this is revealing. Much like cheating with a cheater will get you cheated on, or hearing someone telling you someone’s secrets reveals they are also telling others your secrets, when someone does this you know what kind of person they are. ↩
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There are professional askholes as well, of course. This is the coworker that asks for your opinion on something that is their domain, such as a design or a colour, and from that point forward you will be cited as the cause if any are ever critical. We all know coworkers like this. ↩
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When I was younger, family members would always volunteer my help to anyone who had any computer problems at all. Generally this was enjoyable and rewarding, and it felt good helping people out, but I quickly discovered the “askholes” of the computer-help world. These are the people who will attribute everything bad that ever happens for perpetuity to that time you helped them with a minor problem. They got a virus online? Hey, remember that time you fixed their power supply? That was probably the real cause… ↩