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What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph

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Re: What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph

#261

Post by pydry »

gwerbin wrote: post #159
pydry wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Add it to the list: - the downfall of junior devs - bad hiring market - layoffs in practically every sector theres a ton of things where AI took credit for a trend that had already started before it started being even halfway capable.

I think if you won't even admit that AI greatly accelerated these trends, you're in some kind of denial. There's no reason to believe that we would see a rapid coordinated decline in all of these things at the same time without AI, and strong reason to believe that we would see it with AI. So we have a model that makes testable predictions, and data strongly consistent with those testable predictions, in the form of…

>I think if you won't even admit that AI greatly accelerated these trends, you're in some kind of denial

I think if you actually look at the data for these trends rather than asking AI what it thinks you might experience some cognitive dissonance.

>There's no reason to believe that we would see a rapid coordinated decline in all of these things at the same time without AI

It's called hiked interest rates. The economy is not doing so great for several reasons but the main one is wars.

Re: What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph

#262

Post by antonvs »

embedding-shape wrote: post #95
antonvs wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re using your mom for rubber duck debugging, then. An LLM can work for that as well, usually better because it knows a lot more than your mom.

It's fictional, I never actually got burned by a tech lead nor been put on PIP either, nor asked my mom to help me with programming :)

That's not really relevant, the point is LLMs are actually pretty good for the scenario you described.

Re: What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph

#263

Post by NewsaHackO »

Sammi wrote: post #217
unreal37 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just went to the Stack Overflow homepage, showing newest questions first, and the latest question just asked 13 minutes ago is already closed. And the majority of the questions on page 1 have negative votes.

How good are the questions?

This is why people use AI so heavily. Because no matter how bad or ill formed a question is, it wo answer it the most "caring" way possible, and never berate you for it being a stupid question, common sense, etc (as long as it is about some forbidden topic of course)

Re: What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph

#264

Post by asveikau »

Looks like the decline started before the ai boom.

I can relate. I was active there from 2009 until about 2014, which looks rather like a plateau in the graph. It still showed up in Google searches but I mostly just lost interest in participating.

Re: What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph

#265

Post by rdiddly »

lynndotpy wrote: post #24

Any social organization needs to carefully consider their inclusion-exclusion curve with intentionality. I think a lot of people might balk at the word "inclusivity" today, but StackExchange had ridiculously high barriers to participation, making it inclusive to the long-time users on the site, but exclusive to the newbie participants who found themselves blocked for asking questions. They slowly killed the site in t…

I suspect I'm similar to many users, in that I came to Stack Overflow near the peak, and used it as basically a specialized search engine, without ever asking or answering a question. (I assume this is possible only if you use a widespread stack.) When something better came along, I just moved on. I hadn't directly experienced a sense of community, so I experienced (for example) bureaucratically-closed questions more as a hassle (search again) than as a betrayal.

Re: What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph

#266

Post by bjourne »

It wasn't only LLMs it was also the downright user-hostile attitude prevalent on many sites on the SE network: https://ibb.co/WWgwNBpX

Yeah, bro, I'm not a statistics professor so I can't provide you with the "details or clarity" you need. I tried my best and if that's not enough, fuck it. Same story on history.SE: https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/60710/how-did-hi... If you're gonna require "evidence of prior research" I won't bother. The bots are way friendlier and just as knowledgeable.

The golden goose were users asking questions, not the anal-retentive content curators. SO let the latter drive away the former.

Re: What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph

#267

Post by bananamogul »

Esophagus4 wrote: post #258
wisemanwillhear wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm wrong, but with the advances in AI, SO was in for a major reduction in usage not matter how good they were about enabling the community and encouraging collaboration. I realize that your mileage my vary with modern AI, but the AI has an immediacy and interactivity that together are impossible for SO to overcome. At this point their best option might be to find a way to pivot to an AI based interface while s…

This seems like the most likely answer to me - though we all have our grievances with SO, the culture likely didn’t contribute to its decline as much as simply AI being a better tool.

Having experienced the SO culture, I like to think the culture caused it - schadenfreude - but it was probably inevitable given AI.

Even if SO was the most wonderful friendly place in the galaxy, would you rather post a question and wait hours for a response, or get one instantly?

Re: What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph

#269

Post by astockwell »

lynndotpy wrote: post #24

Any social organization needs to carefully consider their inclusion-exclusion curve with intentionality. I think a lot of people might balk at the word "inclusivity" today, but StackExchange had ridiculously high barriers to participation, making it inclusive to the long-time users on the site, but exclusive to the newbie participants who found themselves blocked for asking questions. They slowly killed the site in t…

> I'd have to consider all the ways a bully eager to use their powers might misunderstand me

Damn. Doesn’t that just sum up so many interactions (and sadly, relationships) in life.

Re: What AI did to stackoverflow in a graph

#270

Post by tsss »

Yeah, I don't remember when was the last time I even visited stackexchange. AI is so much better, it's not even a contest. The real question is where AI will get its knowledge in 10 or 15 years when there is no training material anymore...
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