After ChatGPT disruption, Stack Overflow lays off 28 percent of staff::The popular developer forum is still hunting for a “path to profitability.”
Great. So once Stack Overflow is dead, where will ChatGPT get actual, correct answers from?
Comment Closed: Duplicate Post
See other comment about different company going out of business for totally different reason.
Perfectly toxic, as all stack overflow comments should be.
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.
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
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).
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.
Unemployment is low, wages are finally outstripping inflation, inflation is falling and there is huge investment in factories and infrastructure.
It doesn’t appear that a recession is on it’s way but rather the free money that was flowing into the IT sector is causing all these companies to become profitable fast.
Thus the lay-offs.
It’s not always as simple as that, though.
https://fortune.com/2023/10/01/recession-still-likely-and-coming-soon-6-reasons-why/
And one that agrees with you:
https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/with-gallic-shrug-fed-bids-adieu-recession-that-wasnt-2023-08-16/
The truth of the matter? No one really knows. Large economies are very difficult to forecast reliably and consistently. I hope you’re right and it’s all continual growth for the next couple of years, at the very least. But, like the first article I linked mentions, fed hikes can have a 18-24 month lag time to see real world impacts on various industries and we’re soon approaching the first of that timeframe.
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.
The rich have way too much cash and desperately want another recession
Exactly. We’ve been hearing “there’s a recession coming, any minute now!” for YEARS, and yet every jobs report shows the economy is doing gangbusters.
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
Can’t get that quarterly bonus without showing “growth”.
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.
i want to see who will pay for their garbage when no one has a job
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.
I have never even considered asking a question for that reason.
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)
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.
At-least Chat GPT doesn’t yell at me for asking a question
“Apologies for the oversight, here is the corrected version that includes what you were asking for…”
