StackOverflow launches OverflowAI
News #2: StackOverflow launches OverflowAI, CNCF Ambassador application
StackOverflow launches OverflowAI
Like most of the Engineers here, I have been an avid reader of StackOverflow since the early days of my career (and even before that during my University time).
StackOverflow has become over the years something that I don't see myself being able to live without. It's as if Google search would disappear tomorrow. How would we search for stuff on the internet? Bing, you say... it won't be the same.
While I haven't contributed much in terms of proving answers to questions, I'm still proud of my StackOverflow profile. It is not a lot but it's honest work.
Recently when ChatGPT became famous, I probably used StackOverflow a bit less than usual, but still quite a lot. Also given GPT-4 cutting date is September 2021 and given that I usually deal with technologies that progress quite fast, I have never seen ChatGPT completely replacing StackOverflow in the short term. Where would you search for error codes for anything that was created less than 2 years ago, if not on StackOverflow?
So I was quite shocked when I saw the below chart that shows the page views traffic on StackOverflow declining over the past couple of years.
Interestingly enough, the next day this Tweet was posted with that chart above, StackOverflow responded with the news that they were embracing Generative AI with a new tool called OverflowAI
Between the features, we can find:
Better search with citation to the source.
Semantic search on top of a vector dataset instead of just using lexical search and tags.
Use of Generative AI to help draft a question to post to the community.
A Visual Studio Code integration that minimises context switching while coding.
A Slack integration to access StackOverflow for Teams.
I believe this is huge news and I can see a lot of potential in this move. Quite a different approach from when StackOverflow banned the use of ChatGPT in December last year.
If you can't beat them, join them
Given how exciting this news is, I personally subscribed to their Labs newsletter to stay up to date with the latest developments.
I firmly believe that Generative AI is not here to replace humans but just to enhance their capability, like lots of other technologies before it.
CNCF Ambassador application
The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (aka CNCF) is now accepting applications for Spring 2023 to become a CNCF Ambassador.
What is a CNCF Ambassador? From the link above you can read
Ambassadors are an extension of CNCF, furthering the mission of “making cloud native ubiquitous” through community leadership and mentorship
Why am I sharing this news, you might ask?
While I am not thinking about applying myself, anyone from my audience might qualify. So I encourage you to have a look at the requirements, maybe you don't qualify now but you might be interested in pursuing this goal in the long term.
Personally, I think that aiming for this goal, even if the requirements are too hard and you don't see yourself becoming one in the near future, is still a useful exercise.
I'm a firm believer in the law of compounding when it comes to learning and advancing my career, so I hope that doing something small every day might compound into a big goal like that in the not-so-distant future.
For the short term, the requirements that caught my attention, and that I find more achievable, are:
An active contributor to a CNCF project.
An active leader in the community with a minimum of 1 year of experience in:
Mentoring others
Creating content (e.g., blogs, videos, etc.)
As you can see, writing in a blog (or newsletter) is something that I have already embraced fully. Mentoring is another of my goals for this year. As many of you already know, I recently got approved as a mentor on Mentorcruise. The next big goal might be to become an active contributor to a CNCF project. I haven't yet decided which project I might be involved in but OpenTelemetry is on my watchlist.
In the meantime, while looking around, I discovered some interesting resources that you don't need to be an Ambassador to have access to: