Stack Overflow: AI Destroying Their Business

Many are predicting that artificial intelligence is going to unleash a wave of capabilities that becomes job destroyers. There is another camp that believes, mistakenly so in my opinion, that technology always creates more jobs than it destroys.

In this article we are going to cover Stack Overflow.

This is a technology company. Their business is to help software developers. What we are dealing with is the epitome of those who "learned to code".

Unfortunately for them, some are out of work.

Coders Losing To AI

Stack Overflow is a company that has a team of developers who are on call to answer questions and help others through their coding problems.

Here is what Bard says the company is:

Stack Overflow is a question-and-answer website for programmers. It is the flagship site of the Stack Exchange Network, which also includes other sites for topics such as science, writing, and cooking. Stack Overflow was founded in 2008 by Jeff Atwood and Joel Spolsky.

The site allows users to ask questions about programming and get answers from other users. Questions are voted on by the community, and the best answers are promoted to the top. This helps to ensure that users find the most relevant and helpful information.

Rather simple.

If people have coding problems, they turn to Stack Overflow and get the answers these need.

Actually, this requires correction: they did turn to Stack Overflow...

It appears this is not the case. Instead, these people are turning to AI. After all, why pay this company when you can simply turn to the bots like ChatGPT or Claude for the answer. This is obviously what many developers are doing.

So much for the learn to code idea.

Of course, we would be remiss if we didn't mention how there are a ton of software related jobs being created by the expansion into these areas. This might be, however, only a temporary situation.

Technological Improvements

We are seeing this technology advancing at an impressive rate. While there is a good chance it does slow down a bit, we have unlocked something that is not going to stop.

Too many companies see the value in these systems. It means more training is going to take place, eventually creating more powerful system.

Is everyone at risk in terms of job loss? That is hard to say. What we do know is that knowledge work is easily being automated. If enough of it occurs, jobs will suffer.

The bottom line is computers are advancing everyday. What they can do better than humans only grows on a daily basis. The chat bots have alerted the world to the power, along with benefits, these systems can offer.

Good Luck With This

On a different note, the world of AI is really changing everything.

Here is what Universal did in response to song lyrics being used in AI.

Universal Music has sued artificial intelligence startup Anthropic over "systematic and widespread infringement of their copyrighted song lyrics," per a filing Wednesday in a Tennessee federal court.

One example from the lawsuit: When a user asks Anthropic's AI chatbot Claude about the lyrics to the song "Roar" by Katy Perry, it generates an "almost identical copy of those lyrics," violating the rights of Concord, the copyright owner, per the filing. The lawsuit also named Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" as an example of Anthropic's alleged copyright infringement, as Universal owns the rights to its lyrics.

So who are they going to sue next? OpenAI? Google? A host of other chat bot solutions that pop up?

Talk about a game of whack-a-mole. The copyright laws are going to be obliterated by technology. Anyone who thinks the legal system can keep pace should be laughed at. By the time this case gets in front of a judge, we will be light years further down the road with the technology.

And forget about institutions like the U.S Congress. It takes them 6 months of hearings to figure out lunch. Hell, the Republicans can't even elect a Speak of the House.

When it comes to politics, the law, or technology, I always bet on the technology. It is why I am so confident with crypto. There is no way either of those bodies are going to be able to keep pace.

Stack Overflow is just the start.