What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph

#1

Post by secretslol » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 11:12 AM UTC

What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph
data.stackexchange.com

Re: What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph

#2

Post by hbcdbff » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 11:52 AM UTC

Interesting that you can see COVID in the graph

Re: What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph

#3

Post by mid-kid » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 11:53 AM UTC

Except for covid, it seems the decline was already there.

Re: What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph

#4

Post by xyzsparetimexyz » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 11:53 AM UTC

Stackoverflow did it to themselves by having incredibly unhelpful users

Re: What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph

#5

Post by zh3 » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 11:56 AM UTC

mid-kid wrote: post #3

Except for covid, it seems the decline was already there.

Indeed, decline appears to accelerate significantly in 2023 so seems likely that's AI helping things along.

Re: What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph

#6

Post by ReptileMan » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 11:56 AM UTC

Slightly accelerated their decline. You have a drop around chatgpt release then the slope returns to its previous pace of decline.

Re: What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph

#7

Post by dumberquestions » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 11:56 AM UTC

mid-kid wrote: post #3

Except for covid, it seems the decline was already there.

The trend might've stalled or even reversed if it weren't for AI, we can't just assume the same end was written in stone.

Re: What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph

#8

Post by IshKebab » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 11:57 AM UTC

AI and ridiculously aggressive moderation. If it had been a more welcoming place it probably would have lasted longer.

Re: What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph

#9

Post by nolok » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 11:57 AM UTC

SO did that all to themselves when they decided they didn't want a community to form and that only question and answers mattered. The moment something else allowed to have a better way to get your answers, there was no reason to go there, because there was no community.

I still don't understand why anyone would go with that whole "no conversation please"

Re: What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph

#10

Post by hilariously » Sat, Jul 18, 2026, 11:59 AM UTC

mid-kid wrote: post #3

Except for covid, it seems the decline was already there.

Yep, SO was dying before the GPTs - in some ways it was baked in the original SO design - to become the canonical source of information about programming stuff.

Many people talk about the negativity, and they are right, but I think the reason more than anything is the waiting. On SO a good question might get answered in minutes (if it was easy and someone was karma farming) but it could be days or weeks for general purpose stuff; compare that to a few seconds for an LLM its a no brainer.