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After ChatGPT disruption, Stack Overflow lays off 28 percent of staff

Oct 18, 2023 - arstechnica.com
Stack Overflow, a popular developer forum, is laying off 28% of its staff following disruption from ChatGPT, a generative AI chatbot that offers specific coding help. The rise of such chatbots, which can provide instant corrections and explanations of code, has left Stack Overflow in a challenging situation. The company's CEO, Prashanth Chandrasekar, announced the layoffs as part of a "path to profitability" and "continued product innovation," including the development of their own AI, "Overflow AI."

Ironically, chatbots like ChatGPT, which are impacting Stack Overflow's business, have been developed using data scraped from sites like Stack Overflow. OpenAI is working on web crawler controls to allow sites to opt out of data scraping. Stack Overflow hopes to monetize this by getting AI firms to pay for scraping their site, but it remains uncertain whether this will be a sustainable solution.

Key takeaways:

  • Stack Overflow, a popular developer forum, is laying off 28 percent of its staff due to the rise of generative AI like ChatGPT, which offers more specific coding help.
  • The company is on a "path to profitability" and is working on a direct answer to ChatGPT, called "Overflow AI."
  • ChatGPT's development prowess comes from scraping sites like Stack Overflow, raising questions about the sustainability of the web if these data sources go out of business.
  • OpenAI is developing web crawler controls for ChatGPT, and Stack Overflow hopes to get AI firms to pay to scrape the site, though it's unclear if this will be a sustainable solution.
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