ChatGPT Partners With Stack Overflow, Enhancing Access to Coding Data

OpenAI will leverage a trove of technical information from coding Q&A platform Stack Overflow to train and improve its large language models.

Under the partnership, OpenAI’s flagship chatbot will leverage Stack Overflow’s OverflowAPI suite of tools to enhance its ability to answer coding-related queries.

Additionally, as part of the agreement, ChatGPT will post knowledge from Stack Overflow directly into responses. The OpenAI chatbot will provide attribution to the Stack Overflow source, guiding users to the relevant source.

The Stack Overflow integrations will be available in ChatGPT later this year.

The partnership will also see Stack Overflow leverage OpenAI models in its AI-powered developer tool suite.

“Through this industry-leading partnership with OpenAI, we strive to redefine the developer experience, fostering efficiency and collaboration through the power of community, best-in-class data and AI experiences,” said Prashanth Chandrasekar, CEO of Stack Overflow. “Our goal with OverflowAPI and our work to advance the era of socially responsible AI is to set new standards with vetted, trusted and accurate data that will be the foundation on which technology solutions are built and delivered to our user.”

Code generation is among the top use cases for chatbots like ChatGPT and developers are keen to embrace it to improve their work. A Stack Overflow survey published last June found that three-quarters of developers favor using AI tools in their development workflows.

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OpenAI is trying to tempt developers to use its solutions, including lowering the prices to run its models earlier this year. Now, through its partnership with Stack Overflow, the ChatGPT maker wants to improve its AI models’ coding abilities to further entice developers.

“Learning from as many languages, cultures, subjects and industries as possible ensures that our models can serve everyone,” said Brad Lightcap, OpenAI’s chief operating officer. “The developer community is particularly important to both of us. Our deep partnership with Stack Overflow will help us enhance the user and developer experience on both our platforms.”

Stack Overflow’s deal with OpenAI marks a major shift in the company’s stance on AI. The platform previously banned users from using ChatGPT to generate answers to coding queries over concerns about the reliability of the code output it generated.

Stack Overflow later softened its stance, launching its OverflowAPI suite to provide developers with assistance with coding issues.

Related:Stack Overflow Embraces AI: Unveils OverflowAI Tools for Developers

OpenAI’s agreement with Stack Overflow comes as the Microsoft-backed company looks to secure access to training data. Previously, OpenAI would scrape the internet for information to build its models, but lawsuits from the New York Times and a group of local newspapers have forced the company to change how it sources training data. The ChatGPT maker has since struck deals with the AP and Financial Times to secure access to training data.