Stack Overflow users shift roles and influence after ChatGPT launch
Navigating the Changing Landscape of Online Knowledge Consumption and Production in the Age of Generative AI: Evidence from Stack Overflow
Computers and SocietyHuman-Computer Interaction
Summary
People using Stack Overflow, a popular website where programmers ask and answer questions, changed how they participate after ChatGPT was released. Users who mainly looked for answers started giving more answers themselves, but these new answers were not accepted as often as before. Meanwhile, experienced answerers kept asking questions about new topics and their answers gained more recognition. The researchers found that having access to AI tools like ChatGPT does not guarantee equal success for everyone on the platform.
What this means in practice
- •For online community managers: Design moderation and engagement strategies that account for shifting user roles and unequal recognition after integrating AI tools.
- •For software development team leads: Adjust team knowledge-sharing practices recognizing that AI-driven answers may vary in acceptance and quality.
Authors
Ji Eun Kim, Léa Vitale, Libby Hemphill, Yulin Yu
Abstract
Online knowledge communities rely on a division of epistemic labor between users who seek information and those who produce it. Generative AI may blur these roles, but how it reallocates knowledge-seeking and knowledge-producing activities and reshapes the nature and returns of participation remains unclear. We examine changes in question-asking and answering among Stack Overflow user groups, focusing on consumers and producers, following the release of ChatGPT. Consumers shifted from asking questions to producing answers, but their answers were less likely to be accepted relative to the pre-ChatGPT period, suggesting that increased production did not yield equal standing in the community. By contrast, producers did not change the number of questions they asked, but increasingly asked about novel and emerging topics. Although they produced fewer answers, their answers received greater recognition. These findings show that access to generative AI does not necessarily translate into equal opportunities for successful participation.