We've all been using Google (and web search in general) for so long that it has fundamentally shaped the questions we ask of the Internet to the point that we don't even think questions that we could ask, but don't. We filter them out of our thought process. Just as the people of 1980 didn't keep saying to themselves "Curses, if only it were 2005 and I had the service that will eventually be called Google!" every time they thought of a question. (With a few exceptions, but only a very few.)

The question is, will Alpha expand our capabilities and thus expand the questions we would ask? Of course you don't have any questions that could be answered by Alpha but not Google; you've been trained out of asking them for over a decade now. Can Alpha change that?

Beat me. I certainly trend skeptical. But an important part of being a skeptic is being able to change your mind with more data, and I am ready to try it out and see. We can't really have an informed opinion on this question until we live with it for a while, which absolutely nobody has.