I am regularly asked whether creating manuals is still necessary. Does this profession even have a future? The follow‑up question is often, “After all, we already have Google and YouTube.” More recently, this has been expanded to, “And now we also have AI, such as ChatGPT and Copilot.”
These are good questions. Recently, I was able to run another real-life experiment to help answer them. The power switch of my HP desktop suddenly sank inward and got stuck. It turned out to be a flimsy little plastic switch on an otherwise solid computer.
Can Google replace manuals?
I decided to take a modern approach and search the internet using Dr. Google. I started with what I thought was a good search query: “replace power switch HP Pavilion.” That did not work. By now, I do know how much a new Lenovo costs, how to replace the power switch on an HP laptop, how to replace the entire power board, that you should take safety precautions, and much more. But I did not find an answer to this specific question. Searching on HP’s own website did not help either.
This reminded me of something an experienced knowledge manager at a client once said, many years ago:
With Google, you will always find something. But that is exactly the problem. I do not want to find just anything, I want to find the exact right answer.
When you are looking for a holiday home in France, it does not really matter which one you find. But when you are looking for instructions to replace a specific part in a device or machine, you need that exact instruction. For such specific questions, Google often lets you down.
Does a support site provide the solution to your questions?
Next step. I discovered that HP actually has a very solid support site. When you connect to it, a diagnostic tool immediately identifies exactly which PC you have. You can see whether your device is still under warranty and which components can be replaced. Their product configuration and related information are well organized. This leads you to, thankfully, the manuals. Unfortunately, replacing the power switch was not included. It is not considered standard maintenance that a user is expected to perform.
Can AI replace manuals?
At that point, it was time to resort to a more powerful option: Copilot. I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised. In response to my question, Copilot generated a clear step-by-step plan explaining what needed to be done. “Pay attention to safety, open the housing,” and so on. The advice was quite general, however, and in practice I still did not know much more than before. What I did find very helpful was the suggestion that information for older devices is often no longer available on HP’s official website. Copilot pointed out that HP has an active user community where people often help each other with very specific questions. I had not thought of that yet. Indeed, you can find very targeted help there from other users who have faced similar issues.
The moral of the story
For now, the conclusion is that all these modern tools certainly do not make the human craft of creating accurate and reliable information redundant. They are, however, excellent new tools for making human-created information easier to access. For example, Copilot pointed me toward the user forum, which turned out to be very helpful and something I had not thought of myself.
At Eluxis, we are therefore actively exploring how new technologies such as Copilot can be combined with existing information and existing technologies. That combination seems to us to be the best way forward.
Interested? Feel free to contact us to exchange ideas. We would be happy to do so. You can call or email us. No need to Google or use Copilot.
P.S. How is the PC doing now? I plan to open it up soon and see whether I can solve the issue using all the tips and information I have gathered. I would like to share one tip with you already: “Remove the switch and from now on use a chopstick to press the switch directly on the circuit board.” A surprisingly tasty workaround!
Warm regards, Peter van Bart
info@eluxis.com
Linkedin: Peter van Bart
