AI summaries in Google and AI coding tools have nearly killed Stack Overflow (mastodon.social)

The dominance of AI-driven search tools from tech giants like Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI is significantly impacting independent Q&A platforms like Stack Overflow and even Wikipedia. These AI applications are increasingly consuming online content without providing proper attribution or redirecting users to original sources, leading to a decline in user engagement and a hesitance to contribute or edit freely. This dynamic has raised concerns about the sustainability of these platforms and their role in promoting collaborative knowledge-sharing. The implications for the AI/ML community are profound. As generative AI models increasingly rely on vast amounts of curated content, the absence of proper citation and credit could not only diminish the quality of information but also create a cycle where AI outputs are based on potentially flawed or misrepresented data. This situation highlights the urgent need for regulatory measures and ethical practices that protect original content creators while fostering a more reliable information ecosystem. The evolving landscape calls for a reframing of how AI systems utilize user-generated content, emphasizing the importance of transparency and fair use in a time when digital output increasingly blurs the line between human-derived knowledge and machine-generated responses.