StackOverflow is a popular set of websites that offer questions and answers that is in danger of going out of business because of AI. The most popular website is for programmers who need answers to programming problems, but there are many other question and answer websites under its umbrella. Unfortunately, this website and all its other question and answer websites are about to go out of business and be replaced by AI.
StackOverflow Will Be a Ghost Town
There are going to be fewer people posting to StackOverflow once AI is able to quickly generate the answers you need. Not only that, but an AI can refine the answers it gives you with feedback from you. Yes, StackOverflow allows for comments and updating an answer over time, but an AI will still be easier to interact with, and you won't have to sift through multiple answers to find the right one.
One might argue, how will AI get new information for programming in order for people to get the latest information? That is a good question, but I think the answer should be obvious to most people. The AI will get it from people pasting in their code to the AI seeking information and answers. That's how the AI will get its training data.
The End of Question and Answer Websites
It's possible that this will be the end of question and answer websites. Once AI gets good enough to answer any programming question - or any question at all, why will people go to a website to contribute? The default behavior will be to go to AI.
This will not only be the end of question and answer websites, but it will make use dumber as humans if we don't learn to collaborate and think critically. This is a skill we should never lose as humans.
Counterargument: New Content
This Twitter user poses a counterargument that all existing content is needed for AI and new questions will still be posted to StackOverflow:
It's an interesting counter-argument here - that new information will still be posted to websites and the AI will then use that information in its training data. I can see why they would think this, but I think that people will put new programming information into the AI chatbots and that will be how the AI gets real-time data. It can also very quickly crawl books and other information that is released.
Conclusion
I still think StackOverflow and its affiliated websites will go out of business, even with existing questions and answers. Why? Because you will still go to the AI for those. Once AI is trained on real-time data, it's over for StackOverflow.
What do you think will happen here? Will StackOverflow go out of business?
Online writer since 2008. I enjoy writing and have written nearly a thousand tech related articles about electric vehicles, software, tech companies, hardware, gaming, tech related products, and company developments in tech.
