After ChatGPT disruption, Stack Overflow lays off 28 percent of staff::The popular developer forum is still hunting for a “path to profitability.”

  • kescusay@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Great. So once Stack Overflow is dead, where will ChatGPT get actual, correct answers from?

    • orclev@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Comment Closed: Duplicate Post

      See other comment about different company going out of business for totally different reason.

    • ShustOne@lemmy.one
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      1 year ago

      An actual problem to worry about too. I think there will always be people looking to contribute but as less people do AI may actually get dumber until they figure out how to train AI with AI

      • bionicjoey@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        until they figure out how to train AI with AI

        That won’t work because machine learning doesn’t actually understand what it says. It needs real human knowledge underlying it. It can’t just learn things on its own out of nowhere.

        • zbyte64
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          1 year ago

          But maybe if we sacrifice enough ecosystems we could get it to work and then ask it to solve all the climate problems we created to power it…

        • Jessica
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          1 year ago

          That sounds exactly like what an AI, that was trained by another AI, would say to assuage our fears of General Artificial Intelligence. Nice try.

        • cyd@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          That’s true for general purpose LLMs, but there are other contexts in which machine learning models acquire knowledge without continuous human input, e.g. AlphaZero.

            • umbrella@lemmy.ml
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              1 year ago

              its been quite a while too, they have been training ai to replace programmers using code from there lol

    • Murvel@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      I mean, the AI can memorize the programming documentation, sweep different github repositories, and the programming itself is already learned behavior.

      That’s for programming. As for fault finding, that might get more challenging for the AI without stack overflow.

      • Asifall@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I’m skeptical that an LLM could answer questions as effectively just with documentation. A big part of the value in stack overflow and similar sites is that the answers provided come from people who have experience with a given technology and have some understanding of the pain points. Often times you can ask the wrong question and still get a useful answer because the context is enough for others to figure out what you might be confused by.

        I’m not sure an LLM could do the same just given the docs, but it would be interesting to see how close it could get.

        • jacksilver@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          To add to this comment. Most of the questions and answers in stackoverflow stem from situations not covered by the documentation or when the documentation fails. LLMs don’t have a way to learn about these issues and how to address them because they require actual implementations to assess/validate.

          Its the same reason why git repositories would also fail to meet this need. Repositories only contain (typically working code) without much context on why changes were made or were needed. Technically githib issues or jira tickets could help cover the gaps of something like stackoverflow dissappearing, but would ultimately mean that the information could be locked behind paywalls or corporate systems.

  • FrankTheHealer@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I’ve seen so far on Leemy today that a bunch of people have been laid off from Bandcamp, Stack Overflow and Linked In. What the shit. Did the industry just decide to shrink today or something

    • edgemaster72@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I’m afraid I don’t have any good sources to back this up, but I’ve seen it said multiple times in other threads on similar layoffs that investment capital has dried up in tech, investors are starting to demand a return, which leads to companies doing layoffs to cut costs etc. I’m sure smarter people can come along and explain it better (if they so choose).

      • bassomitron@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It’s a result of the cheap (and during the pandemic, literally “free”) borrowing hayday of the last few years being over (they ended around 2022, when the Fed started jacking up interest rates and banks had to also increase rates in order to cover their loaned to liquidity ratios as required by law). As such, investors and businesses can’t just borrow a shitload of money cheaply, so what they choose to invest in is much more conservative and/or the ROI tantalizing.

        Also, in my opinion, the frenzy to dump millions into tech is mostly kind of over. The big dogs have gobbled up all the promising start-ups and potential disruptors and then some. AI is the “new” hotness, but all the companies that really have immediately viable products/services are already heavily invested in. There isn’t really anything that’s poised to come in and become the next OpenAI that’s not already owned by the bigger companies.

        Lastly, due to the first thing I mentioned, many folks believe we’re A) already in a recession or B) about to enter one in earnest. In either scenarios, investors tend to pull their funds into safer pots while they ride out bumpy economic waters.

      • somethingsnappy@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        The rich have way too much cash and desperately want another recession so they can buy cheap assets. Consumers, the overall job market etc. Are trending the other way and messing up the cycle of boom/bust. In this particular instance, I am fine with the layoffs… as long as they keep paying the people they laid off. Paying people whose jobs are automated should have started at least as early as the industrial revolution.

    • pc486@reddthat.com
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      1 year ago

      Q3 just ended. These layoffs are because the books are not looking good. Everyone is hurting with inflation and higher interest, tech being particularly vulnerable to high interest rates.

      I can only hope the execs cut correctly. A second round of layoffs at a company can destroy morale enough to sink the company. Who wants to continue working at a place that fired your close peers, wondering if you’re next?

      • Fraylor@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        You can already tell they didn’t cut correctly, as they didn’t cut themselves.

        • pc486@reddthat.com
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          1 year ago

          They may have cut themselves. Usually high level cuts are announced as “leaving for an amazing opportunity” or to “focus on family” or similar. That happens a month or two later after a deep layoff round and reorganizing. We’ll see if these recent layoffs included executives by Q1 next year. Watch LinkedIn if you’re that curious.

          Still, it’s unfair to the lower levels, including line management, because they don’t get that option. It’s a “thank you for your service” and a boot out the door.

          Note: not all tech companies are like this. Gumroad is an excellent example of a very open and ran-differently business.

        • pc486@reddthat.com
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          1 year ago

          Tech has been in aggressive growth mode since 2008 because the Fed was handing out free money (interest rate lower than inflation). That allowed investors to dump money into tech businesses in hope of rapid business expansion, which in turn makes the business more valuable.

          The free money dried up. Now these tech businesses are going to find out if they’re sustainable.

    • Zeth0s@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The whole year. Companies who lied off (meta, google, Microsoft) and did stock buybacks had a huge boost on the market.

      Stock market is demanding layoffs, from even before chatgpt took over. That’s it. AI is just another keyword to push market price even further

    • Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      You’ll always see the stories of popular companies doing layoffs.

      But you rarely hear stories of tech companies going on massive hiring sprees. Because those stories don’t get clicks.

    • LiveLM@lemmy.zip
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      1 year ago

      laid off from Bandcamp

      Fuck Epic for many reasons, but for this one in particular

  • londos@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I can also ask basic, repetitive questions framed exactly to my use case without getting yelled at that the question has been asked and answered before.

    • gohixo9650@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 year ago

      and then be provided with a solution of a 10 years old tech that is barely applicable today. But if you read all the answers you may find an up to date suggestion in the comments of a non-accepted answer.

      • realharo@lemm.ee
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        But if you read all the answers you may find an up to date suggestion in the comments of a non-accepted answer.

        Honestly this is not bad, if it solves your problem and it took less than 10 minutes of reading overall.

        Plus you gain some understanding along the way, about why the other answers aren’t going to solve your problem, which is also valuable.

        • gohixo9650@discuss.tchncs.de
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          1 year ago

          I’m not against learning or understanding the nature of the issue so that I’m in position to form a correct solution. But I find it kinda funny that topics are locked with “duplicate”, and the question linked has for example an accepted answer written in PHP5. I believe that SO should invent a way that such cases can be updated without the current “hacks”. Now, even if somebody puts the effort to write an up-to-date answer, it will be at the end of answers and it will take a lot of time, if ever, to reach a higher position. Also the “accepted” answer will always be the old one.

          Another issue is that in some cases, the accepted answer becomes a wiki. Edit upon edit by users with required reputation adding new up-to-date info. In the end the answer is nothing close to what the original answer was, but it keeps the originally acquired score. So it can reach to a case that you see a +100 upvoted answer, which in fact has only been proof-read by 2-3 people, the ones that are needed to accept the edited answer.

      • tony@lemmy.hoyle.me.uk
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        1 year ago

        Then if you try to provide a modern solution, get yelled at because ‘not everyone is using the latest version’ even though the modern solution works on everything newer than about 8 years.

      • aubertlone@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        As if that excuses their behavior on a forum dedicated to learning and solving problems?

        Everyone gets annoyed at oft-repeated questions. But the answer is moderation, which is also unpaid.

        Not vitriol and skullduggery.

    • lud@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      I have never even considered asking a question for that reason.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Stack Overflow used to be every developer’s favorite site for coding help, but with the rise of generative AI like ChatGPT, chatbots can offer more specific help than a 5-year-old forum post ever could.

    While no chatbot is 100 percent reliable, code has the unique ability to be instantly verified by just testing it in your IDE (integrated development environment), which makes it an ideal use case for chatbots.

    Today, CEO Prashanth Chandrasekar announced Stack Overflow is laying off 28 percent of its staff.

    Of course, the great irony of ChatGPT hurting Stack Overflow is that a great deal of the chatbot’s development prowess comes from scraping sites like Stack Overflow.

    OpenAI is working on web crawler controls for ChatGPT, which would let sites like Stack Overflow opt out of crawling.

    As we’ve seen with chatbots convincing each other that you can “melt eggs,” Chandrasekar has argued that sites like Stack Overflow are essential for chatbots, saying they need "to be trained on something that’s progressing knowledge forward.


    The original article contains 276 words, the summary contains 168 words. Saved 39%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

    • MonkderZweite@feddit.ch
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      1 year ago

      As we’ve seen with chatbots convincing each other that you can “melt eggs,” Chandrasekar has argued that sites like Stack Overflow are essential for chatbots, saying they need "to be trained on something that’s progressing knowledge forward.

      Or, you know, fact check before you feed it to the AI. You don’t tell a child ‘go google it’ to everything and hope it somehow works out, right? “But then AI could never be profitable!” Oh the irony.

      Btw, would a common language model be possible?

  • TheBeege@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I don’t get all the hate and vitriol for StackOverflow. Sure, some people are assholes. Welcome to humanity. At least the system provides for voting to suppress the shit takes and general assholery.

    SO combined with Google is usually enough to help me find an answer that either gives the context I need to make a solution or a straight up solution. If people are posting and expecting a super detailed, correct answer in a matter of hours, I think their expectations need adjustment.

    I’ve posted very few questions and had decent responses for the majority of them. Is my experience uncommon?

    But yeah, layoffs suck, and I hope they find a way to be profitable. Hell, if they do a Patreon-esque model where people can just throw money at them because they appreciate the service, I’d subscribe. (If a similar thing exists that I don’t know about, please link)

    • stolid_agnostic@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Hate is often meme-based today. Now people who never even thought of that site are suddenly against it because it’s being talked about.

      • TheBeege@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Not exactly what I was hoping for, but that works. I can also do a bit of answering, per the comments. Thanks!

    • OwlBoy@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      “Apologies for the oversight, here is the corrected version that includes what you were asking for…”