[convexfunction]

Just imagine the hell we'd be in if people could give wrong answers in an authoritative tone and then insist they absolutely can't be wrong!

[bambax]

For some reason, we assume what comes out of a computer is more trustworthy than what people say. We think computers are transparent, reliable, idempotent and don't have an agenda. Even more so if we call it "intelligent"...

But ChatGPT is a bullshit machine, and that much is new.

[tpmoney]

At least the good part of the answers being on stack overflow then is, like they used to say "On the internet no one knows you're a dog". So whether the answer came from ChatGPT or an aggressively overconfident fool, a wrong answer should get the same downvotes regardless, and a correct answer should get the same up votes. Probably the two biggest issues with ChatGPT being used to provide answers is whether it's wrong often enough to start swinging the experience of the site negative, and more importantly that some people are getting fake internet points unfairly.

[convexfunction]

Who's "we"? :)

To the extent this perception exists -- and I don't think "came from a computer" falls within the top 5 actually effective methods of laundering bullshit nowadays, though maybe it used to -- you might expect that it gets crushed into dust as the public gets more exposure to high-profile counterexamples.

And, wait, isn't the concern usually that people read AI-generated content and trust it but don't think it came from a computer?

[yawnxyz]

Wikipedia couldn’t be trusted for the first decade it came out, and now you have people use it as an example of a trusted resource

[orange_fritter]

This trust arose through a sophisticated bureaucracy of checks and balances. Stackoverflow isn't quite as complex.

[hombre_fatal]

Well, at least a human had to put in the work to write it. Now you can automate this low tier content.