On the internet, data is abundance, and that it's more than plenty for pretty much anyone.
But following the rise of generative AI products, made a hype following the release of ChatGPT by OpenAI, pretty much all big tech companies are either developing their own products, or compete in the increasingly saturated market by adopting others' products.
And this is an issue.
AI like Large Language Models that power generative AIs require lots and lots of data.
While data on the internet is plenty, it's not for everyone for the taking.
Or at least, not for free.
Then, there is the matter of personal data and what data should be preserved, and the ownership of the data that can put even the most publicly-available data as something that cannot be used for AI training.
Stack Overflow was one of the first websites that announced it would charge companies for access to content used to train AI chatbots.
This time, the popular Q&A service for coders and programmers alike has signed up its first customer, which is none other than Google.
"Their AI may not have all the answers, and so we have a huge ability to help complete that loop," explained Stack Overflow CEO Prashanth Chandrasekar.
"We are the biggest place where community knowledge is curated and validated."
Chandrasekar said that the deal isn't putting any significant restrictions on how Google Cloud can use Stack Overflow data, meaning that the company can use the data to train large language models and other AI systems.
"Where we want to stand firm on is—nonnegotiable things for us— trust, accuracy, quality, and attribution back to the sources of these AI outputs," he said.
What this means, the deal, among others, shall allow Google Cloud to use questions and answers from Stack Overflow about Google Cloud services to provide coding assistance and technical support through a version of Google’s Gemini chatbot.
The deal allows Gemini to be able to summarize answers drawn from Stack Overflow in its own words, and include Google's logo, but give a link back the original material, and the username of the site contributor who supplied it.
Because of the integration, Google Cloud users can ask questions directly through Google Cloud’s command-line interface.
The deal is significant, and none the less.
For starters, this should help Stack Overflow in the growing AI hype.
"This will be a meaningful commercial offering for us in the near term, medium term, and long term,” Chandrasekar said.
Then, there is the fact that Large Language Models from various companies have been consuming information gathered from millions of books and websites, and churned the datasets to fuel their growth.
Stack Overflow that was popular in its days, is still a home for a lot of data about programming. And its data is still crucial in making Gemini smarter.
Previously, Stack Overflow appeared to be threatened by ChatGPT and other generative AI products, which can answer queries that would have previously sent coders their way.
The company even developed its own generative AI as its answer to the trend.
Instead of fighting an uphill battle where it has a little chance of even surviving, let alone winning, Stack Overflow played it nicely, and safely, by partnering with others, and have then use its assets.
The win-win situation is the result of a mutual-gains for both parties.
Besides Stack Overflow, another company that "seems" to give in, is Reddit.
Read: WordPress And Tumblr Want To Sell Users' Data To Help Train OpenAI And Midjourney
The 'front page of the internet' has an enormous archives of posts that are driven by the labor of volunteers consisting of unpaid subreddit moderators who oversee huge communities of unpaid users.
Together, their efforts on Reddit make the platform valuable, and the data even more valuable to AI companies.
When Reddit announced that it was launching an IPO, the company reached out to a selection of mods and frequent posters to offer them the opportunity to buy stock early.
And Reddit said that it has sold access to their posts to Google.
Just before the IPO announcement, Reddit and Google entered into a $60 million per year deal that would give Google access to Reddit’s API in order to, among other things, train its generative AI models.
"Google now has access to Reddit’s Data API, which delivers real-time, structured, unique content from their large and dynamic platform," said Google in a blog post.
The partnership also lets Reddit get access to Google's "Vertex AI" service which would help improve search results on Reddit.
So again, this is a win-win situation.
The deals between Stack Overflow and Reddit with Google is also significant because they mark a major step towards compensating publishers.