The death of stackoverflow.
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In the past, if you had a technical question, you would turn to a forum like Stack Overflow. But with the advent of large language models like ChatGPT and Bard, those days may be numbered.
ChatGPT and Bard are both large language models that have been trained on massive datasets of text and code. This allows them to generate text, translate languages, write different kinds of creative content, and answer your questions in an informative way, even if they are open ended, challenging, or strange.
For example, if you were to ask ChatGPT or Bard "How do I fix a syntax error in my Python code?", they would be able to provide you with a detailed answer, complete with code examples.
This is in contrast to Stack Overflow, where you would have to sift through a sea of answers, many of which are incorrect or outdated.
Of course, ChatGPT and Bard are still under development, and they are not perfect. But they are learning quickly, and they are already providing valuable answers to technical questions.
As these models continue to improve, it is likely that they will eventually replace traditional question-and-answer forums like Stack Overflow.
Here are some of the benefits of using ChatGPT and Bard for technical question answering:
They are always available, 24/7.
They can answer any technical question, no matter how obscure.
They are always up-to-date with the latest information.
They are always objective and unbiased.
They are always respectful and polite.
If you have a technical question, I encourage you to try using ChatGPT or Bard. You may be surprised at how helpful they can be.
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@Nagesh said in The death of stackoverflow.:
If you have a technical question, I encourage you to try using ChatGPT or Bard.
In some cases, this would require sending confidential and proprietary information to a destination outside your control. This may be very much a violation of your employer's policies and perhaps even of privacy laws. I'm not entirely sure, but I believe my current employer prohibits using them at all, even for non-propriatary questions.
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@HardwareGeek in the beginnings of the internet some employers took their time before allowing us to use it
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@Nagesh SO was always a bit shit and only good for getting a name to fine tune what you're actually searching for. And the actually hard questions never get answered there anyway.
The LLMs can't answer novel questions, they need to have the advert in the training data. The questions I've tried to ask the various LLM chatbots haven't gotten very good answers. And the code they generate is somewhere in the spectrum between iffy and flat out wrong. So pretty much on par for SO.
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@Carnage said in The death of stackoverflow.:
So pretty much on par for SO.
At least the LLMs don't downvote your question for being a duplicate of a question you've just explained is different from the one you're asking.
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@Carnage said in The death of stackoverflow.:
@Nagesh SO was always a bit shit and only good for getting a name to fine tune what you're actually searching for. And the actually hard questions never get answered there anyway.
It's still a bit shit but better than the alternatives.
The LLMs can't answer novel questions, they need to have the advert in the training data. The questions I've tried to ask the various LLM chatbots haven't gotten very good answers. And the code they generate is somewhere in the spectrum between iffy and flat out wrong. So pretty much on par for SO.
Yeah. Will be interesting to see how this stuff goes.
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@HardwareGeek said in The death of stackoverflow.:
@Carnage said in The death of stackoverflow.:
So pretty much on par for SO.
At least the LLMs don't downvote your question for being a duplicate of a question you've just explained is different from the one you're asking.
I believe that's a feature of JeffGPT
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@Nagesh I still stumble on things chatgpt and bing didn't help from time to time. Most recent is how to use the stable horde API, I had to read the documentation like a caveman. Bing with it's search still hallucinate a lot when it's things gpt doesn't "know"
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@sockpuppet7 said in The death of stackoverflow.:
August 12, 2023 - The day
developerscode monkeys from all around the world never realized just how much they needed Stack Overflow, until it was gone.
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@HardwareGeek said in The death of stackoverflow.:
In some cases, this would require sending confidential and proprietary information to a destination outside your control.
Unlike StackOverflow?
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@HardwareGeek said in The death of stackoverflow.:
code monkeys from all around the world never realized
just how much they needed Stack Overflow, until it was gone.anything whatsoever in their entire careers.
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@Gustav Considering that the “AI” bots are being trained on StackOverflow, its disappearance wouldn’t bode well for them either.
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@Nagesh said in The death of stackoverflow.:
They are always up-to-date with the latest information.
Demonstrably untrue; ChatGPT doesn't know about anything that happened after its language model was trained, and it will tell you this if you ask the right questions.
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@Carnage said in The death of stackoverflow.:
And the actually hard questions never get answered there anyway.
The actually hard questions are why employers bother hiring actual experts, despite them being expensive.
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@Gustav said in The death of stackoverflow.:
@HardwareGeek said in The death of stackoverflow.:
In some cases, this would require sending confidential and proprietary information to a destination outside your control.
Unlike StackOverflow?
With SO you can start with sufficiently vague Google searches to at least put you in the same rabbit hole as the answer, and eventually stumble on the post of
some other poor sucker having a similar problemyour predecessor who got fired for leaking confidential company information and hope there’s a useable answer there.
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@izzion I think I may have written one or two questions on stack overflow on the last 20 years. Anything that wasn't already asked I feel isn't likely to get a good answer, much less a quick one
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In a surprising plot twist, ChatGPT and Bard kill Stack Overflow before Jeff does.
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@Gern_Blaanston While I don't want to be a
St. Jeff did actually leave Stack Exchange some years ago. I don't think anyone noticed.
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OP was probably written by ChatGPT/one of the LLMs in the first place.
Also:
An LLM said in The death of stackoverflow.:
They can answer any technical question, no matter how obscure.
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@cvi they can answer any question, no matter how obscure. Nothing said it was the right answer or even a useful answer.
You can answer literally any question with 'fuck off' and it's still an answer. Perhaps that's what I need to invent, FuckGPT.
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@Arantor said in The death of stackoverflow.:
Perhaps that's what I need to invent, FuckGPT.
@Tsaukpaetra's probably working on that already.
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@HardwareGeek said in The death of stackoverflow.:
@sockpuppet7 said in The death of stackoverflow.:
August 12, 2023 - The day
developerscode monkeys from all around the world never realized just how much they needed Stack Overflow, until it was gone.did that future date slip past you?
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@sockpuppet7 said in The death of stackoverflow.:
@HardwareGeek said in The death of stackoverflow.:
@sockpuppet7 said in The death of stackoverflow.:
August 12, 2023 - The day
developerscode monkeys from all around the world never realized just how much they needed Stack Overflow, until it was gone.did that future date slip past you?
No, it didn't. Neither did the odd never in that sentence. They're just not what I chose to comment on.
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@loopback0 said in The death of stackoverflow.:
@Arantor said in The death of stackoverflow.:
Perhaps that's what I need to invent, FuckGPT.
@Tsaukpaetra's probably working on that already.
After my exceptionally disappointing interaction at attempting to guide it into making me a smut, I seriously considered it...
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@HardwareGeek said in The death of stackoverflow.:
@Nagesh said in The death of stackoverflow.:
If you have a technical question, I encourage you to try using ChatGPT or Bard.
In some cases, this would require sending confidential and proprietary information to a destination outside your control. This may be very much a violation of your employer's policies and perhaps even of privacy laws. I'm not entirely sure, but I believe my current employer prohibits using them at all, even for non-propriatary questions.
Yeah, our workplace has flat-out blocked the site chatgpt. Wouldn't surprise me if there was a ruleset they could tick a box on and it would ban as many as the firewall provider has found.
There might be a chicken and egg problem here. An LLM has to be trained on something. Stackoverflow has that something. GIGO!
They're pretty useful for getting through the POC phase of learning, but you still need to judge whether it's helpful or not.
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@Nagesh said in The death of stackoverflow.:
In the past, if you had a technical question, you would turn to a forum like Stack Overflow. But with the advent of large language models like ChatGPT and Bard, those days may be numbered.
In this context, think of ChatGPT as the next iteration of search. Instead of finding a list of relevant things and offering that list to you, it will have ingested those things and it will tell you the information it has collected.
It will be a simpler interface for casual things and a big improvement, but you won't know the source of the information, so it will be tricky to use in academic contexts in will be tough for professionals to vet whether it's regurgitating popular nonsense or actually providing helpful information. Future versions of "Stack Overflow-based developers" will be more likely to use the results verbatim and less likely to actually understand them since the AI based coding add-in will already adapt the solution to the current context.
As usual, this will make easy things easier and hard things harder. Gone will be the entry-level programming jobs making upper-middle class income and in their place will be fewer programming jobs that require much more actual knowledge.
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@Jaime said in The death of stackoverflow.:
Future versions of "Stack Overflow-based developers" will be more likely to use the results verbatim and less likely to actually understand them
Is it possible to have a level of understanding that is less than they currently do, which is essentially zero?
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@Gern_Blaanston said in The death of stackoverflow.:
@Jaime said in The death of stackoverflow.:
Future versions of "Stack Overflow-based developers" will be more likely to use the results verbatim and less likely to actually understand them
Is it possible to have a level of understanding that is less than they currently do, which is essentially zero?
Oh, experience tells me that they will underwhelm expectations.
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@Jaime said in The death of stackoverflow.:
Future versions of "Stack Overflow-based developers" will be more likely to use the results verbatim and less likely to actually understand them
That assume companies won't use custom breed components and libraries.
ChatGPT will have no knowledge of these proprietary systems so I don't think it can give useful advice on those problems.
Instead it will just emit confident-sounding-nonsense.
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@cheong said in The death of stackoverflow.:
Instead it will just emit confident-sounding-nonsense.
That's why I've always compared these AIs to Boris Johnson. He could have been replaced with ChatGPT and everyone would have been happier.
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@dkf said in The death of stackoverflow.:
@cheong said in The death of stackoverflow.:
Instead it will just emit confident-sounding-nonsense.
That's why I've always compared these AIs to Boris Johnson. He could have been replaced with ChatGPT and everyone would have been happier.
ChatGPT would have been correct occasionally? And would have had a better haircut?
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@Carnage you know that “hair tousled” thing is deliberate on his part to make him seem more like just a regular chappie - in his mind anyway. He does it ahead of every meeting.
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@Carnage said in The death of stackoverflow.:
That's why I've always compared these AIs to Boris Johnson. He could have been replaced with ChatGPT and everyone would have been happier.
ChatGPT would have been correct occasionally? And would have had a better haircut?
For things related to events before it's last trained data. probably.
For things related to events that happens recently or even the same day, I think not.
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@cheong I think you give old Bozza too much credit.
