- Added information about protests by parts of the Stack Overflow community
Update from May 10, 2024:
The OpenAI collaboration has upset some Stack Overflow users. According to reports (via The Verge, Ars Technica), users are trying to delete or edit their posts in protest, seeing their work being shared with OpenAI without their consent.
Stack Overflow is responding by banning and reverting protest posts. One user reported on Mastodon that his account was banned for seven days after he changed his top-rated answers in protest. According to the moderators, the posts are part of the collective work and can only be deleted in exceptional cases.
In the terms of service, users waive the right to return their content. However, the CC 4.0 license requires attribution, and it remains to be seen whether ChatGPT will meet this requirement to the satisfaction of the Stack Overflow community.
Original article from May 6, 2024:
ChatGPT gains access to Stack Overflow's validated developer knowledge
OpenAI wants its AI models to provide better code support by integrating accurate and verified data from the Stack Overflow API. This is intended to help OpenAI's models quickly find solutions to problems.
Stack Overflow will use OpenAI's models to develop its own AI service, OverflowAI. In turn, OpenAI will integrate Stack Overflow's validated technical knowledge directly into ChatGPT, giving users easy access to trusted, accurate and highly technical information and code from millions of developers on the platform, according to a press release.
The goal of the integration is to optimize OpenAI's AI models through enhanced content and feedback from the Stack Overflow community. OpenAI wants to mark the authorship of the Stack Overflow community within ChatGPT.
The first new integrations and features between the two companies are expected in the first half of 2024.
OpenAI wants its models to learn from "as many languages, cultures, subjects, and industries as possible," with the developer community being especially important, says OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap. He believes the collaboration will benefit both OpenAI and Stack Overflow.
The partnership comes after a controversial period in which Stack Overflow banned ChatGPT-generated content from its community due to quality concerns. But some community members felt that the platform has not taken a strong enough stance against AI content.
As a result, Stack Overflow's moderation teams went on strike last summer, accusing management of being too lax on AI content. In an open letter, they stated that AI-generated content "poses a major threat to the integrity and trustworthiness of the platform and its content."
