Some learn that energy is conserved, and that energy can neither be created or destroyed. Put another way, what you put into something you get out, you get what you pay for, or nuthin’s for free.

Since the late 1990’s, Google’s search engine has refined its ability to produce references to answers as we chase about the things we might or do need.

In the older days, librarians and their libraries played the role of producing answers to questions, and assisting in our research. Then we would have been climbing narrow dusty steel stairs in poor lighting to a fifth or sixth floor stack, where books organized by Dewey could be pulled from the shelves, and their pages explored.

Hopefully portions of solutions could be derived from the readings, often by tenacity and chance, when we would carry the books back down to the main floor and pay a fee to stand in front of a Xerox machine, shifting facedown open books and grabbing facsimiles of the relevant pages.

The time and effort normally allocated to investigation and research, now deferred to Google, whose distributed computing model is extensive, and mostly delivered with equity, at least for those who have access to the Internet.

But nuthin’s for free, even Google. In exchange, we stomach the search algorithm’s perceptions of what might prompt our attention through admittedly what seems to be mostly benign and unobtrusive advertisements.

Scary is that only days earlier when looking for vintage Campagnolo derailleurs, like a big brother, Google somewhat with bias, dishes up an alluring series of available and related bike components to consider among a seemingly non related query.

But mostly, when subtle and smart, I nod thankfully for the time saved. After all, better advertisement than paying a subscription to search for solutions from any of the search engines available these days.

Enter artificial intelligence, computing algorithms that have been trained by the masses to produce even more relevant searches to solutions of our problems, identifying vendors for derailleurs in fewer clicks, better quality, more reliability, even creating accurate prose that might argue why newer technology would make for a happier ride in comparison to the rebuilt relics that are preferred.

Now inspired to drop some money on the new technology, deserving to the selected bike shop is that shop’s agreement to pay a fee to the search engine, a sort of finders fee. After all, nuthin’s for free.

Enjoy A.I.’s seemingly accurate and timesaving production of information that benefits your lifestyle of choice. Eventually you will have to make a choice if paying for the information is worth your effort, because inevitably the precision and accuracy will be offered at a cost.

Otherwise, you will have to go old-school and figure out the solution yourself through experimentation and possibly serendipity.