Developers Protest as Stack Overflow Shares Code with OpenAI

Earlier, developer Q&A community Stack Overflow announced a partnership with OpenAI, allowing OpenAI to access Stack Overflow's post data through an API. The data will be used to train artificial intelligence and provide relevant code suggestions in ChatGPT.

As the oldest and largest developer Q&A community, Stack Overflow has accumulated a vast amount of posts, with many developers asking questions and community members providing various answers, including code-based solutions.

However, the decision to share this data with OpenAI has sparked outrage among many community members, who feel that their contributed code is being sold without their consent.

Some developers have protested by modifying or deleting their answers, but Stack Overflow has restored the original data and temporarily banned the protesting developers for 7 days.

This move is not without basis, as Stack Overflow has a long-standing policy prohibiting the deletion or modification of accepted answers, unless under special circumstances. The platform aims to prevent the removal of potentially useful posts that may benefit others.

Additionally, Stack Overflow has implemented a recovery system that automatically restores data and imposes temporary bans when answers are heavily modified or deleted. This measure is also designed to prevent malicious code from being added to high-scoring content by hackers who may gain access to developer accounts.

As a result, developers who wish to protest Stack Overflow's partnership with OpenAI may need to explore alternative measures, rather than deleting their answers.