News StackOverflow hit hard by chatbots

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Stack Overflow has recently laid off 28% of its staff, approximately 150 employees, following the disruption caused by AI tools like ChatGPT. The discussion highlights the significant financial investment in Stack Overflow, which was purchased for $1.8 billion two years ago. Questions arise regarding the costs Stack Overflow incurs for using ChatGPT and how the quality of AI-generated answers is monitored. Users express frustration with AI bots failing to provide satisfactory answers to programming questions. However, some programmers report positive experiences with AI tools like GitHub's Copilot and ChatGPT, noting that these tools can save substantial time by generating initial code drafts that require minimal supervision, thus enhancing productivity and allowing more focus on complex design tasks.
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Interesting.
Though from my calculations, it's not that many people: ≈150 (ref: company blog and maths)
I find it amazing that someone paid $1.8 billion for it just 2 years ago. (ref: wiki)
But I'm curious how this works. How much does Stack Overflow pay the people who developed ChatGPT for its use? And who monitors its answers? I've tried several times to get answers from several AI bots regarding computer programming and not a single one was successful in answering any of my questions.
 
OmCheeto said:
I've tried several times to get answers from several AI bots regarding computer programming and not a single one was successful in answering any of my questions.

A programmer friend of mine, and a guy I rather trust when it comes to technological subjects, claims that GitHub's Copilot saves him several hours per week - generating in no time code that requires supervision, but is good enough as a starting point to shorten development time.
 
I use Chat GPT the same way. It provides an excellent starting point in developing code that would take a significant amount of time to build manually. When there is an error, I point it out and it fixes it. This leaves me a lot more time to work on larger design ideas that I can also work on with GPT in a similar fashion. It greatly speeds up the iterative processes involved with coding.
 
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Thread 'RIP Chen Ning Yang (1922-2025)'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_Chen-Ning ( photo from http://insti.physics.sunysb.edu/~yang/ ) https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/18/science/chen-ning-yang-dead.html https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdxrzzk02plo https://www.cpr.cuhk.edu.hk/en/press/mourning-professor-yang-chen-ning/ https://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/physics/about/awards_and_prizes/_nobel_and_breakthrough_prizes/_profiles/yangc https://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/physics/people/_profiles/yangc...
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