Just yesterday I had to attend internal "office hours" of an expert team to get a question answered - I had done extensive research of my own, both manual and using AI leveraging internal resources. What did the "expert" do when they couldn't answer my question right away? They said "let me ask {insert AI tool}". I cut them off stating that this is an insult to my intelligence. I am in the office hours for expert advice not someone else performing the same AI prompts that I already performed.
Wait, you're upset because they used AI to answer a question they weren't expecting, and couldn't answer? Yet, you used AI as part of your upfront research?
What would you have preferred? They could have just said, "I'm sorry, I don't know the answer to that, please let me get back to you" but instead they tried to get an answer for you.
I'm not sure what the problem is?
I think it's perfectly fine for the author to use AI in their research process, and it sounds like they weren't relying on it exclusively.
So they've already asked AI its opinion on the topic. They're explicitly reaching out to an expert because they've exhausted their ability to move forward on their own (even with AI).
If the expert just asking the same question to the AI and returning the answer directly - that's what OP has just done, and it actually is a waste of time. They're looking for insight, not just another quick response from an LLM.
I would imagine that letting the expert know ahead of time so they can research an answer (perhaps with the assistance of AI) would be a good pattern. But it has to be guided by the expert's knowledge - that's the whole point. Using AI is fine, and probably even good if it's being guided by a wise hand, but it isn't sufficient on its own, and bouncing answers directly back from an AI with no refinement is not useful, and dare I say it is somewhat insulting.
These were expert office hours for API modeling. The company has certain requirements and standards - this team is supposed to live and breathe them. The question wasn't that advanced. Performing a basic AI prompt in the authoritative expert office hours is not the answer.
The right approach would be to say: I do not know. Let me discuss / research with my colleagues and get back to you.
And to be clear: I manually read and studied the official guiding documents without AI. Then I used a separate AI setup to more effectively research a larger array of additional internal sources, wikis, etc. I also reviewed the code from other teams / projects to infer any patterns that could apply to my project, so I came prepared with examples for discussion.
> The right approach would be to say: I do not know. Let me discuss / research with my colleagues and get back to you.
I suppose that would be very close to "you've come to the experts for advice and I probably shouldn't be here because I'm not one of them", which nobody wants to admit.
For many, an honest look at themselves would end with "I don't contribute anything". They have the opposite of impostor syndrome - they don't belong, but they feel like they should, and AI helps them pretend.
Exactly! If you're an owner (ie: expert, you teach other people how to do your stuff) you should be making decisions and taking responsibility, given existing context. I'm happy using LLM to confirm my reasoning or research, but it's still me doing the coding, or architecting or anything, not LLM, and if something goes bad I cannot say "LLM told me to do it". If people are blindly doing what their tools tell them to do, that's the problem there.
Edit: in this instance if I were the expert I'd respond from my expertise. Using LLM is fine to explain whys/research per what you say, but ultimately I'm the educator here
I’m curious, what was their reaction? :)
They were speechless. Kind of shocked. It was hilarious. They then agreed to reach out to some colleagues / other teams to research and find the answer. After 20 min they followed up with an acceptable answer.