Your Friend Asked You a Question. Don’t Copy and Paste an Answer From a Chatbot

back 2010, a website called Let me google it for you has gained a significant amount of popularity to serve a single purpose: snark.

The site allows you to create a custom link that you can send to anyone who asks you a question. When they click the link, it plays an animation of the process of typing a question into Google. The idea is to show the person asking the question how easy it is for them to just find the answer themselves.

It’s an insult, basically. It’s funny and rude.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with a little rudeness in the right context. If an openly hostile person is wasting your time on social media asking easily researched questions, I think you should go ahead and enjoy a little passive aggression (as a behavior).

In a more personal context, though, using Let Me Google That for You clearly says that you don’t respect the person you linked to and that their question is a waste of your time. If someone from your workplace or your personal life asks you a question, it’s because they want to Your specific inputSo it’s better to just provide the answer than to send a link to the Google search results page—ideally with only the context you can provide.

Now, this is 2025, back people Let me google it for you Also offers Let me do ChatGPT for youWhich works exactly as you think. And its existence points to something new: in response to a question, how rude it is to respond with AI output—especially in a more professional context.

wasting time

Telling someone on Google can be fun and satisfying, but it’s not helpful. I want to copy-paste or screenshot a conversation chatgpt, Claudeor any other I have an agent In the same category: Not helpful and kind of rude.

Developer Alex Marticinovich touched on this a while ago in a blog post Showing AI output to humans is rude: “Be polite, and don’t send AI texts to people,” he wrote. “My own understanding of AI etiquette is that AI output can only be relayed if it is either accepted as your own or there is express consent from the receiving party.” I think this is a pretty good framework for AI etiquette.

If someone asks you a question, when they can ask the machine instead, because they wanted to your Perspective The Internet exists, at least in theory, so that people can connect with each other, and so that we can benefit from each other’s knowledge. Answering a question with AI output ignores this dynamic, especially if you don’t say that’s what you’re doing.