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StackOverflow and Google are finished. This is expected and it may not look like it now, but banning an advancement in technology (even temporary) is usually t

StackOverflow and Google are finished. This is expected and it may not look like it now, but banning an advancement in technology (even temporary) is usually the first step to irrelevance of those pushing back. In a few years from now when ChatGPT and perhaps the much awaited GPT-4 are released, get better, (or even an implementation is open sourced) it will further plummet the usage for SO and Google. The genie is out of the bottle and there is no going back, I'll give it less than 15 years.

mrg3_2013 4y ago
well, nothing stops google from baking this into their search. But it feels harsh to claim SO is finished. SO is human curated and has an edge (today). And for all we know, chatGPT learnt from SO and can synthesize results that are almost good.
- BoorishBears 4y ago
  It feels especially harsh when SO is having to ban the answers it generates for being wrong...
N3cr0ph4g1st 4y ago
Google is most likely already working on its own version. They have the resources and ML chops to probably build one far more powerful. I'd bet they'll stay dominant
- dzink 4y ago
  Any tool that doesn’t force you to click on many page views to get an answer is bad for Google search. They want you to peruse and click on sites riddled with google ads as many times as possible. These incentives have led to quality of results getting worse over time. The only way Google is launching this type of model would be if they could embed ads in the answers and even potentially bake them in. Which would also make showing as many iterations as possible more lucrative, and thus disincentivize good performance. The problem with Ad platforms is that good user experience is a bug for the business model.
  - randomsearch 4y ago
    Maybe, but also think about the prompts. Google might be able to infer far more about your intentions from a fully formed question rather than a search query. Which will allow them to target you more precisely, allow them to sell data to product companies. Prompts are more personal and revealing, even the language you use. You could also imagine inserting adverts into the generated response.
  - eternalban 4y ago
    "Here is an example of using async IO in Java which you should read while enjoying a refreshing Coke(tm)."
jmugan 4y ago
I don't think so, especially for StackOverflow. I want correct answers, not answers that just look correct.
- homero 4y ago
  And actual comments with real world tips
- SkyPuncher 4y ago
  Yep. Stable diffusion is powerful because there's no "right answer". Just better/worse variations of a prompt. GPT is going to be amazing for telling stories. Particularly, for "too literal" software engineers, like me. However, it doesn't seem to offer much in terms of hard, factual information that technical fields rely on.
  - fragmede 4y ago
    There's plenty of text in the process of hard factual information. How about for commenting code? Or describing how a system works? Engineering isn't just a set of diagrams with length notations. Tell me how eg a Scharfenberg coupler operates with only symbols and numbers; no using text that ChatGPT might generate. Or how about all of this page: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/elasticloadbalancing/latest/application/introduction.html https://docs.aws.amazon.com/elasticloadbalancing/latest/appl...
  - noobermin 4y ago
    Once again with the "right answers" for art. Stable Diffusion is just as bad at art as this is at programming. Both are "good" to fools and idiots (read your manager) who thinks your work is useless and needs to be farmed out (while theirs is vital, of course)
  - throwaway675309 4y ago
    Hard disagree on the storytelling abilities at least with the current capabilities I found the storytelling to be extremely predictable, linear and not really able to come up with unusual or interesting plots... Which makes sense considering that these large scale language models represent the diluted sum of human generated content and most humans are by definition relatively mundane, as are the works that they produce. Now I won't argue that the stories that these large scale language models can produce are highly cohesive, they're just not very interesting or compelling in any form.
crabmusket 4y ago
"Finished" and "less than 15 years" don't quite go together, I think.
uejfiweun 4y ago
To be fair, Google is working on something very similar: https://blog.google/technology/ai/lamda/ https://blog.google/technology/ai/lamda/ Given Google's resources and scale, I'd wager that whatever they have is on par with, if not better than, OpenAI's models. All this being said, I disagree with your hypothesis. Google does have certain benefits that pretrained models won't easily be able to replicate. For instance, keeping up-to-date and accurate data about restaurant hours, locations, etc. Additionally, it's pretty difficult to know if the LLMs are giving you correct information or not. I think these models still need more innovations before they replace Google. Not to say the current gen isn't useful, but the current Venn diagram of Google use cases and ChatGPT use cases is barely overlapping IMO.
mr-pink 4y ago
StackOverflow and Google don't ask my phone number for search... so they're not finished for me
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
cokeandpepsi 4y ago
I'm not sure about that, it's a temporary ban and the reasoning presented in their post is sound they are swarmmed with a massive influx of incorrect answers to questions that 'look somewhat correct at first glance'
- ksaj 4y ago
  I found a great example to demonstrate. I asked how to transpile Lisp to C. It perfectly described what transpiling is, said (correctly) that not all Lisp structures will translate directly into C, so those parts of the code may be broken, then gave this method for transpiling: sbcl --script example.lsp --output example.c Now... that would be REALLY GREAT if it was true. But SBCL is not a transpiler (except for bytecode, but that's a little different), and this command will just error out. But boy, do I wish it was actually a thing! As far as AI answers go, I would give it two thumbs up. However, the information is wrong, and so I must save my thumbs for another time.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Reminds me of a story I read where an advanced computer (we'd call it AI now) when asked a question it couldn't answer, would simulate an entire universe where the question was answered, and then determine the answer and report back. And it'd get things like the sbcl command line above, because that was the right answer in the particular universe where the question could be answered.
    - ksaj 4y ago
      That's straight up how Lisp macros work. It is alien technology after all.
  - fragmede 4y ago
    What happens when you give it the Lisp code and ask ChatGPT to do the transpiling?
    - ksaj 4y ago
xboxnolifes 4y ago
15 years... is a very long time on the internet. I'd say anything lasting more than 15 years is already a major exception to the rule, so something lasting another 15 hardly sounds "finished".
imadr 4y ago
> but banning an advancement in technology (even temporary) is usually the first step to irrelevance of those pushing back. Answers given by chatgpt have a high chance of being incorrect, how is this a ban on advancement in technology? How is banning chatgpt in it's current state unreasonable for a website that tries to provide correct answers?
mjr00 4y ago
> StackOverflow and Google are finished. This is expected and it may not look like it now, but banning an advancement in technology (even temporary) is usually the first step to irrelevance of those pushing back. Depends on the reason for banning a technology. In this case it isn't because SO's business model is threatened, really; right now it's largely because the ChatGPT answers are usually wrong, and getting spammed to high hell by people who think they're clever by using ChatGPT to answer questions. It's similar to image boards banning or requiring labels for AI-generated art. It's not that artists feel threatened... it's that the people looking at art don't want to have to wade through a ton of similar-looking, mediocre AI-generated crap. Or to put it another way; if I set up some bots to start spamming every HN post with dozens of ChatGPT generated comments based on the submission title[0], and I (rightfully) got banned for such, is that because HN feels threatened by ChatGPT? [0] not using text from the article as a prompt to more accurately simulate the average HN comment
- fileeditview 4y ago
  Exactly. If ChatGPT was so great for this purpose they could just plug it into SO and suddenly they wouldn't need any real users anymore farming for points.
__d 4y ago
I played with ChatGPT today. It doesn't replace Google or SO today, and based on the types of issues with what it generated, ChatGPT is not going to replace a competent programmer any time soon. Where I fear you might be right though, is that the web in general (and so, Google) and sites like SO with their internal content, will inevitably lose value as people post ChatGPT-generated content which superficially looks reasonable, but is subtly wrong. Wading through all those subtly-wrong things looking for the actual answer will be a far worse experience than today. Which is unfortunate. I don't see a good way to avoid it, sadly. SO's attempt to ban ChatGPT-generated content is useless: while people have the incentive to try to get kudos from SO, and ChatGPT requires skilled, detailed analysis to detect its errors, the ban is unenforceable.
- gardenhedge 4y ago
  I woke up today and decided to ask ChatGPT something instead of Googling it. It worked perfectly for my query. A version of ChatGPT that has access to the web (can crawl, can link to content) will be a big blow for google.
  - ZephyrBlu 4y ago
    A version of ChatGPT with internet access that can crawl the web and link things is fundamentally different to the version that exists today.
bagels 4y ago
This was the thought I had as well when using it for the first time. Much of what I end up searching for (facts) are more directly answered by ChatGPT.

mrg3_2013 4y ago

well, nothing stops google from baking this into their search. But it feels harsh to claim SO is finished. SO is human curated and has an edge (today). And for all we know, chatGPT learnt from SO and can synthesize results that are almost good.

BoorishBears 4y ago
It feels especially harsh when SO is having to ban the answers it generates for being wrong...

N3cr0ph4g1st 4y ago

Google is most likely already working on its own version. They have the resources and ML chops to probably build one far more powerful. I'd bet they'll stay dominant

dzink 4y ago
Any tool that doesn’t force you to click on many page views to get an answer is bad for Google search. They want you to peruse and click on sites riddled with google ads as many times as possible. These incentives have led to quality of results getting worse over time. The only way Google is launching this type of model would be if they could embed ads in the answers and even potentially bake them in. Which would also make showing as many iterations as possible more lucrative, and thus disincentivize good performance. The problem with Ad platforms is that good user experience is a bug for the business model.
- randomsearch 4y ago
  Maybe, but also think about the prompts. Google might be able to infer far more about your intentions from a fully formed question rather than a search query. Which will allow them to target you more precisely, allow them to sell data to product companies. Prompts are more personal and revealing, even the language you use. You could also imagine inserting adverts into the generated response.
- eternalban 4y ago
  "Here is an example of using async IO in Java which you should read while enjoying a refreshing Coke(tm)."

jmugan 4y ago

I don't think so, especially for StackOverflow. I want correct answers, not answers that just look correct.

homero 4y ago
And actual comments with real world tips
SkyPuncher 4y ago
Yep. Stable diffusion is powerful because there's no "right answer". Just better/worse variations of a prompt. GPT is going to be amazing for telling stories. Particularly, for "too literal" software engineers, like me. However, it doesn't seem to offer much in terms of hard, factual information that technical fields rely on.
- fragmede 4y ago
  There's plenty of text in the process of hard factual information. How about for commenting code? Or describing how a system works? Engineering isn't just a set of diagrams with length notations. Tell me how eg a Scharfenberg coupler operates with only symbols and numbers; no using text that ChatGPT might generate. Or how about all of this page: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/elasticloadbalancing/latest/application/introduction.html https://docs.aws.amazon.com/elasticloadbalancing/latest/appl...
- noobermin 4y ago
  Once again with the "right answers" for art. Stable Diffusion is just as bad at art as this is at programming. Both are "good" to fools and idiots (read your manager) who thinks your work is useless and needs to be farmed out (while theirs is vital, of course)
- throwaway675309 4y ago
  Hard disagree on the storytelling abilities at least with the current capabilities I found the storytelling to be extremely predictable, linear and not really able to come up with unusual or interesting plots... Which makes sense considering that these large scale language models represent the diluted sum of human generated content and most humans are by definition relatively mundane, as are the works that they produce. Now I won't argue that the stories that these large scale language models can produce are highly cohesive, they're just not very interesting or compelling in any form.

crabmusket 4y ago

"Finished" and "less than 15 years" don't quite go together, I think.

uejfiweun 4y ago

To be fair, Google is working on something very similar: https://blog.google/technology/ai/lamda/ https://blog.google/technology/ai/lamda/ Given Google's resources and scale, I'd wager that whatever they have is on par with, if not better than, OpenAI's models. All this being said, I disagree with your hypothesis. Google does have certain benefits that pretrained models won't easily be able to replicate. For instance, keeping up-to-date and accurate data about restaurant hours, locations, etc. Additionally, it's pretty difficult to know if the LLMs are giving you correct information or not. I think these models still need more innovations before they replace Google. Not to say the current gen isn't useful, but the current Venn diagram of Google use cases and ChatGPT use cases is barely overlapping IMO.

mr-pink 4y ago

StackOverflow and Google don't ask my phone number for search... so they're not finished for me

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

cokeandpepsi 4y ago

I'm not sure about that, it's a temporary ban and the reasoning presented in their post is sound they are swarmmed with a massive influx of incorrect answers to questions that 'look somewhat correct at first glance'

ksaj 4y ago
I found a great example to demonstrate. I asked how to transpile Lisp to C. It perfectly described what transpiling is, said (correctly) that not all Lisp structures will translate directly into C, so those parts of the code may be broken, then gave this method for transpiling: sbcl --script example.lsp --output example.c Now... that would be REALLY GREAT if it was true. But SBCL is not a transpiler (except for bytecode, but that's a little different), and this command will just error out. But boy, do I wish it was actually a thing! As far as AI answers go, I would give it two thumbs up. However, the information is wrong, and so I must save my thumbs for another time.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Reminds me of a story I read where an advanced computer (we'd call it AI now) when asked a question it couldn't answer, would simulate an entire universe where the question was answered, and then determine the answer and report back. And it'd get things like the sbcl command line above, because that was the right answer in the particular universe where the question could be answered.
  - ksaj 4y ago
    That's straight up how Lisp macros work. It is alien technology after all.
- fragmede 4y ago
  What happens when you give it the Lisp code and ask ChatGPT to do the transpiling?
  - ksaj 4y ago

xboxnolifes 4y ago

15 years... is a very long time on the internet. I'd say anything lasting more than 15 years is already a major exception to the rule, so something lasting another 15 hardly sounds "finished".

imadr 4y ago

> but banning an advancement in technology (even temporary) is usually the first step to irrelevance of those pushing back. Answers given by chatgpt have a high chance of being incorrect, how is this a ban on advancement in technology? How is banning chatgpt in it's current state unreasonable for a website that tries to provide correct answers?

mjr00 4y ago

> StackOverflow and Google are finished. This is expected and it may not look like it now, but banning an advancement in technology (even temporary) is usually the first step to irrelevance of those pushing back. Depends on the reason for banning a technology. In this case it isn't because SO's business model is threatened, really; right now it's largely because the ChatGPT answers are usually wrong, and getting spammed to high hell by people who think they're clever by using ChatGPT to answer questions. It's similar to image boards banning or requiring labels for AI-generated art. It's not that artists feel threatened... it's that the people looking at art don't want to have to wade through a ton of similar-looking, mediocre AI-generated crap. Or to put it another way; if I set up some bots to start spamming every HN post with dozens of ChatGPT generated comments based on the submission title[0], and I (rightfully) got banned for such, is that because HN feels threatened by ChatGPT? [0] not using text from the article as a prompt to more accurately simulate the average HN comment

fileeditview 4y ago
Exactly. If ChatGPT was so great for this purpose they could just plug it into SO and suddenly they wouldn't need any real users anymore farming for points.

__d 4y ago

I played with ChatGPT today. It doesn't replace Google or SO today, and based on the types of issues with what it generated, ChatGPT is not going to replace a competent programmer any time soon. Where I fear you might be right though, is that the web in general (and so, Google) and sites like SO with their internal content, will inevitably lose value as people post ChatGPT-generated content which superficially looks reasonable, but is subtly wrong. Wading through all those subtly-wrong things looking for the actual answer will be a far worse experience than today. Which is unfortunate. I don't see a good way to avoid it, sadly. SO's attempt to ban ChatGPT-generated content is useless: while people have the incentive to try to get kudos from SO, and ChatGPT requires skilled, detailed analysis to detect its errors, the ban is unenforceable.

gardenhedge 4y ago
I woke up today and decided to ask ChatGPT something instead of Googling it. It worked perfectly for my query. A version of ChatGPT that has access to the web (can crawl, can link to content) will be a big blow for google.
- ZephyrBlu 4y ago
  A version of ChatGPT with internet access that can crawl the web and link things is fundamentally different to the version that exists today.

bagels 4y ago

This was the thought I had as well when using it for the first time. Much of what I end up searching for (facts) are more directly answered by ChatGPT.