Monday, pile Overflow and OpenAI Announced a new API partnership that will integrate Stack Overflow technical content with OpenAI ChatGPT AI assistant. The agreement has generated controversy among the Stack Overflow user community, with many expressing anger and protest the use of your contributed content to support and train AI models.
“I hate this. I’m going to delete or deface my answers one by one.” wrote a user on sister site Stack Exchange. “I don’t care if this goes against their silly policies, because as this ad shows, their policies can change at will without first consulting their stakeholders. You don’t care about your users, I don’t care about you.”
Stack Overflow is a popular question and answer site for software developers that allows users to ask and answer technical questions related to coding. The site has a large community of developers who bring knowledge and experience to help others solve programming problems. Over the last decade, Stack Overflow has become a widely used resource for many developers looking for solutions to common coding challenges.
According to the announced partnership, OpenAI will use Stack Overflow Overflow API product to improve its AI models using content from the Stack Overflow community, officially incorporating information that many believe it had previously removed without a license. OpenAI will also “feature validated technical insights from Stack Overflow directly into ChatGPT, giving users easy access to trusted, attributed, accurate, and highly technical insights and code powered by the millions of developers who have contributed to the Stack Overflow platform for 15 years.” . ”According to Stack Overflow.
In exchange, OpenAI plans to provide attribution to the Stack Overflow community within ChatGPT, but it’s unclear how exactly the company will do this. Stack Overflow will also use OpenAI technology in its development of OverflowAIan artificial intelligence model announced in July 2023 that uses an LLM to provide answers to developers’ questions.
While the companies tout the benefits of collaboration, many Stack Overflow users have expressed discontent with the agreement. This is especially true considering that until very recently, Stack Overflow seemed to take a negative stance toward generative AI in general. ban written responses using ChatGPT. It was also widely reported last year that the popularity of ChatGPT had severely reduced Stack Overflow traffic, although the company seemed then refute that, alleging faulty analysis by outsiders.
Since the announcement, some users have attempted to alter or delete their Stack Overflow posts in protest, arguing that the move steals the work of those who contributed to the platform without a way to unsubscribe. In retaliation, Stack Overflow staff have reportedly been banning those users while deleting or reverting protest posts. On Monday, a Stack Overflow user named Ben led to mastodon to share his experience when he was suspended after posting a protest message:
Stack Overflow moderators have stated that once posts are made, they become “part of the collective efforts” of other contributors and should only be removed in extraordinary circumstances, according to The edge. Stack Overflow Terms of Service Also note that users cannot revoke permission for Stack Overflow to use their contributed content.
While Stack Overflow owns user posts, the site uses a Creative Commons 4.0 license that requires attribution. We’ll see if ChatGPT integrations, which haven’t been implemented yet, will honor that license to the satisfaction of disgruntled Stack Overflow users. For now, the battle continues.
This story originally appeared on Ars Technique.
