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After ChatGPT disruption, Stack Overflow lays off 28 percent of staff
(arstechnica.com)
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this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2023
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Great. So once Stack Overflow is dead, where will ChatGPT get actual, correct answers from?
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.
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.
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.