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After ChatGPT disruption, Stack Overflow lays off 28 percent of staff:
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.
[...] You might think of Stack Overflow as "just a forum," but the company is working on a direct answer to ChatGPT in the form of "Overflow AI," which was announced in July. Stack Overflow's profitability plan includes cutting costs, and that's the justification for the layoffs. Stack Overflow doubled its headcount in 2022 with 525 people. ChatGPT launched at the end of 2022, making for unfortunate timing.
[... ] OpenAI is working on web crawler controls for ChatGPT, which would let sites like Stack Overflow opt out of crawling. [...] 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. They need new knowledge to be created."
(Score: 3, Interesting) by OrugTor on Wednesday October 18 2023, @04:32PM
I have generally had a good experience on SO. The questions tend to be very specific, at least the genuine questions. There are still some "do my homework for me" questions. If I find the question that expresses my problem there are typically one or two distinct answers that work and several more where the question was misunderstood or the answer is some obvious remedy that is known not to work. I don't see GPT having much impact. Any answer coming from GPT will either be patently inadequate or specific and plausible enough to have been copied from a human-originated answer and therefore likely correct or at least it can be treated the same way as a human answer.
SO hired a bunch of people for whatever purpose and it didn't work out. I'm not convinced the layoffs have anything to do with AI.