Things I look forward to (then a question)

1. Finding citeable answers faster with ML guidance

With a ML-driven chatbot, or similar interface, I can imagine it will be easier to find human-written answers without actually posting a question. The image below is a screenshot from an ML-driven search engine (not shown are the citations below the answer, probably the most valuable part):

2. Writing better questions with ML guidance

I can easily imagine the Ask Wizard evolving to help newcomers and old-timers alike improve the quality of their questions. Including:

• answering them without posting a question (see above)
• helping them find resources that might help them answer their own question

(Obviously I could use ML tools to do these today, no integration necessary.)

3. Generate hypothetical answers I can test, approve and then publish

I'm most skeptical of this one, but with the right gamification it might be possible. (Harsh penalties for anyone publishing nonsense.)

4. Continue to have the Stack Overflow data dump publicly available under BY-SA 4.0

(I assume this still exists, I sometimes miss the news.) This public data dump of the community's hard work is a social asset. I would love to see SO release it as an LLM model compatible with Dolly 2.0 or whatever the open format ends up being. Failing that, keep the data openly and publicly available so that others can try is a must.

(Obviously this doesn't apply to Stack Overflow for Teams data.)

My question

Am I being overly optimistic to think that these are the kinds of ideas Stack Overflow is considering, rather than generating work for volunteer moderators?

Things I look forward to (then a question)

1. Finding citeable answers faster with ML guidance

With a ML-driven chatbot, or similar interface, I can imagine it will be easier to find human-written answers without actually posting a question. The image below is a screenshot from an ML-driven search engine (not shown are the citations below the answer, probably the most valuable part):

2. Writing better questions with ML guidance

I can easily imagine the Ask Wizard evolving to help newcomers and old-timers alike improve the quality of their questions. Including:

• answering them without posting a question (see above)
• helping them find resources that might help them answer their own question

(Obviously I could use ML tools to do these today, no integration necessary.)

3. Generate hypothetical answers I can test, approve and then publish

I'm most skeptical of this one, but with the right gamification it might be possible. (Harsh penalties for anyone publishing nonsense.)

4. Continue to have the Stack Overflow data dump publicly available under BY-SA 4.0

(I assume this still exists, I sometimes miss the news.) This public data dump of the community's hard work is a social asset. I would love to see SO release it as an LLM model compatible with Dolly 2.0 or whatever the open format ends up being. Failing that, keep the data openly and publicly available so that others can try is a must.

(Obviously this doesn't apply to Stack Overflow for Teams data.)

My question

Am I being overly optimistic to think that these are the kinds of ideas Stack Overflow is considering, rather than generating work for volunteer moderators?

Follow-up

Journeyman Geek points to Phillipe's response in his answer (emphasis mine):

... We are working closely with community members throughout this process to experiment with GenAI to build solutions to solve for historical pain points with the site. ... Leveraging GenAI to give newer community members real-time feedback on asking questions that are appropriate on Stack Overflow might reduce the load on community members.

And in Phillipe's post "An example of a generative AI tool: Creating better question titles":

We know that title creation is difficult for new askers, and this [ML powered process would be] a low-friction way to make that process easier for both askers and moderators alike.

So I think Stack Overflow are indeed planning labor-reducing tools. Whether they implement my brilliant ideas is another story ;)

Things I look forward to (then a question)

1. Finding citeable answers faster with ML guidance

With a ML-driven chatbot, or similar interface, I can imagine it will be easier to find human-written answers without actually posting a question. The image below is a screenshot from an ML-driven search engine (not shown are the citations below the answer, probably the most valuable part):

2. Writing better questions with ML guidance

I can easily imagine the Ask Wizard evolving to help newcomers and old-timers alike improve the quality of their questions. Including:

• answering them without posting a question (see above)
• helping them find resources that might help them answer their own question

(Obviously I could use ML tools to do these today, no integration necessary.)

3. Generate hypothetical answers I can test, approve and then publish

I'm most skeptical of this one, but with the right gamification it might be possible. (Harsh penalties for anyone publishing nonsense.)

4. Continue to have the Stack Overflow data dump publicly available under BY-SA 4.0

(I assume this still exists, I sometimes miss the news.) This public data dump of the community's hard work is a social asset. I would love to see SO release it as an LLM model compatible with Dolly 2.0 or whatever the open format ends up being. Failing that, keep the data openly and publicly available so that others can try is a must.

(Obviously this doesn't apply to Stack Overflow for Teams data.)

My question

Am I being overly optimistic to think that these are the kinds of ideas StackOverflow is considering, rather than generating work for volunteer moderators?

Things I look forward to (then a question)

1. Finding citeable answers faster with ML guidance

With a ML-driven chatbot, or similar interface, I can imagine it will be easier to find human-written answers without actually posting a question. The image below is a screenshot from an ML-driven search engine (not shown are the citations below the answer, probably the most valuable part):

2. Writing better questions with ML guidance

I can easily imagine the Ask Wizard evolving to help newcomers and old-timers alike improve the quality of their questions. Including:

• answering them without posting a question (see above)
• helping them find resources that might help them answer their own question

(Obviously I could use ML tools to do these today, no integration necessary.)

3. Generate hypothetical answers I can test, approve and then publish

I'm most skeptical of this one, but with the right gamification it might be possible. (Harsh penalties for anyone publishing nonsense.)

4. Continue to have the Stack Overflow data dump publicly available under BY-SA 4.0

(I assume this still exists, I sometimes miss the news.) This public data dump of the community's hard work is a social asset. I would love to see SO release it as an LLM model compatible with Dolly 2.0 or whatever the open format ends up being. Failing that, keep the data openly and publicly available so that others can try is a must.

(Obviously this doesn't apply to Stack Overflow for Teams data.)

My question

Am I being overly optimistic to think that these are the kinds of ideas Stack Overflow is considering, rather than generating work for volunteer moderators?