We find a lot of information about pretty much everything on the internet. We do not have to remember things because we are always online and always able to find the information we are looking for. It is true. I do it, you do it, everybody does it. Wikipedia, Google, Forums and of course specific sites…
I just give an example, I once met a doctor, a physician. A patient had a problem that was unclear to him and he actually told the patient that he would google for the problem. In the end he came up with a very helpful solution for the guy, much better than what many of us would get in the same situation. I will not disclose any details.
Now why do we need an expert at all, if the expert did not know and found a more helpful answer than the other experts only by using a search engine that all of us can use?
Actually it is the conjunction of the expert and the online information that became so helpful. At least since the last presidential election in some country on the North American continent we have learned that media (and probably even the internet) may be unreliable and that truth is relative, if we at all accept the concept of truth.
Or to become more tangible, there are numerous sites that promise us easy solutions at least to questions that really many find important like diets, raising money easily (and legally), and a lot more, we all know it. It is quite easy to put a site online and put any information on there. It is a bit harder, but possible to get found. The author of the site can sell something that he would never buy himself or something that he believes, even though it is not true. I have met a person in Switzerland who seriously told me that eating would be unnecessary for humans and he or she just practiced it for the joy of eating. In case of medical advice it is quite obvious that this might be dangerous, but in almost any area we have more or less the same problem. A government agency that enforces that only the truth is written on web pages would be a nightmare. Just think of your favorite politician being in charge of such an agency…
But for the expert it is easy to recognize which information is serious and useful. And even easier to use the right keywords for searching.
And there is more. The expert knows the situation, consciously and subconsciously he combines experience and what he sees, hears, …. to solve the problem. And builds in the input from the search.
We should also think that searching is extremely efficient, but knowing 99% without searching is so much more efficient. Just think of languages. I speak a couple of them, and it is often useful to use online dictionaries or even translators. But needing them for every other word is inefficient and will actually sometimes lead to wrong understanding.
The information on the internet will become better. There will be new concepts implemented by sites for providing reliable content in certain areas. We already see Wikipedia, which is not 100% reliable, but probably about as good as a printed encyclopedia in this aspect.
Anyway, the experts will not become useless, but we will need them in the future as well.
