Stack Overflow bans users en masse for rebelling against OpenAI partnership — users banned for deleting answers to prevent them being used to train ChatGPT

Stack Overflow, a legendary internet forum for programmers and developers, is coming under heavy fire from its users after it announced it was partnering with OpenAI to scrub the site's forum posts to train ChatGPT. Many users are removing or editing their questions and answers to prevent them from being used to train AI — decisions which have been punished with bans from the site's moderators. 

Stack Overflow user Ben posted on Mastodon about his experience editing his most successful answers to try to avoid having his work stolen by OpenAI.

Ben continues in his thread, "[The moderator crackdown is] just a reminder that anything you post on any of these platforms can and will be used for profit. It's just a matter of time until all your messages on Discord, Twitter etc. are scraped, fed into a model and sold back to you." 

Harsh words, but words that ring true with fellow Stack Overflow users who are joining the post protest. Users are also asking why ChatGPT could not simply share the source of the answers it will dispense in this new partnership, both citing its sources and adding credibility to the tool. Of course, this would reveal how the sausage of LLMs is made, and would not look like the shiny, super-smart generative AI assistant of the future promised to users and investors.

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