The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source - Starlight, Knuth asks ChatGPT, Stack Overflow mods strike, Reddit API pricing revolt & open source AI has a new champ (News)

Episode Date: June 5, 2023

The Astro team releases a new documentation builder, legendary computer scientist Donald Knuth plays with ChatGPT, over 500 volunteer mods have signed an open letter to Stack Overflow Inc, Reddit faces a revolt due to their new API pricing & the Technology Innovation Institute release Falcon, a new open source LLM that's topping Hugging Face's leaderboard.

What up nerds, I'm Jared, and this is Changelog News for the week of Monday, June 5th, 2023. Ms. Lav Marinich's get is simply too hard opinion from GoTime153 made the rounds over the weekend, so I was inspired to add an Unpop roundup to the end of this episode. Let me know if you like it. Okay, let's get into the news. The team behind Astro just announced a new documentation builder powered by, you guessed it, Astro. They say it's everything you need to build a stellar docs website. It's fast, accessible, and easy to use. This is easy to believe, considering how Astro itself is designed with these same priorities in mind. It's called Starlight, and it hooks you up with site navigation, search, internationalization, SEO, easy-to-read typography, code highlighting, dark mode, and more.

I am consistently impressed by the work this community puts out. Starlight is still young, but it has a bright future, pun intended. And who knows? Maybe they'll build in an AI chatbot for us too. Because as Cable and I discussed on JS Party, you know what? Using newer technology means that the AIs don't know about them yet, and that is not great.

Yeah, I think at some point there will be standardized tooling for all libraries, services, et cetera, where they can embed their docs or their knowledge into all of the AIs that you might want to use. And so you'll have more quick information about Quick City, for instance. That being said, have you tried BARD? Even legendary computer scientist Donald Knuth is playing with chat GPT. Inspired by a conversation he had with Stephen Wolfram,

Knuth asked it 20 questions and wrote up his analysis of its responses. His questions are interesting, much more intentional than anything I come up with. He asks things like, does Donald Trump eat betel nuts? Write a sonnet that is also a haiku. What is the most beautiful algorithm? Stuff like that. He then provides the answers verbatim and his conclusions. Here's my favorite thing he has to say about it. Quote, I find it fascinating that novelists galore have written for decades about scenarios that might occur after a quote singularity in which super intelligent machines exist. But as far as I know, not a single novelist has realized that such a singularity

would almost surely be preceded by a world in which machines are 0.01% intelligent and in which millions of real people would be able to interact with them freely at essentially no cost. End quote. Despite this game of 20 questions, Knuth does not plan on continuing his generative AI research. He says he's going to spend his time developing concepts that are authentic and trustworthy. Time for sponsored news.

Our friends at Hasura would like to invite you to Hasuracon on June 20th through the 22nd. That's three days to learn, share, celebrate, and geek out on the future of Hasura and data APIs. Data APIs are reshaping the world of data delivery, helping enterprises do more with their data by serving it where it's needed and when it's needed in a fast, secure, flexible way. Hasura and their customers are at the forefront, really driving this shift. Costco, Verizon, Atlassian, General Mills, over 40 of the Fortune 100 companies use Hasura. Hasuracon features a world-class speaker lineup, hands-on workshops, product deep dives, and more. Whether you're a seasoned pro or just starting, there will be something for everyone. And best of all, it's 100% free and easily accessible online. Get all the details and register today at hasura.io slash hasuracon.

Once again, that's hasura.io slash hasuracon. And if you're wondering how many times can I say Hasura during this sponsorship, the answer is 11. I've said Hasura 11, 12 times. Over 500 volunteer moderators have signed an open letter to Stack Overflow Inc. detailing a strike catalyzed by, but not solely because of, the company's response to AI-generated content. The letter says, Stack Overflow Inc. has decreed a near total prohibition on moderating AI-generated content in the wake of a flood of such content being posted to and subsequently removed from the Stack Exchange Network, tacitly allowing the proliferation of incorrect information, quote-unquote hallucinations, and unfettered plagiarism on the Stack Exchange network.

This poses a major threat to the integrity and trustworthiness of the platform and its content. End quote. Was that a run-on sentence? That felt like a run-on sentence. Either way, the strike will continue until Stack Overflow retracts their policy to a degree that addresses the concerns of the moderators and allows moderators to effectively enforce established policies against AI-generated answers.

SO isn't the only platform in hot water. When Reddit first announced their new API pricing, we were told it will remain free to developers who want to build apps and bots that help people use Reddit, as well as to researchers who wish to study Reddit for strictly academic or non-commercial purposes. So much for that. Sparked by a great breakdown by Apollo developer Christian Selig,

showing the new pricing model would cost him $20 million a year with its current user base, Reddit users, mods, and entire subreddits are staging protests and threatening to leave the platform altogether when the changes take place. I'm an Apollo user myself, and I will certainly use Reddit less if it stops working. So far, Reddit employees have engaged in this conversation, but no changes to the new pricing plan have been announced. Ever since Meta's Llama saw the light of day, open source teams around the world have been hard at work pushing the state of the art forward. The latest release in that effort comes from the Technology Innovation Institute in Abu Dhabi,

UAE. It's called Falcon and it's topping Hugging Face's LLM leaderboard. It uses a modified Apache license, meaning the models can be fine-tuned and used for commercial purposes, which means it's the first open-source LLM that extends beyond research limitations. This is yet another exciting step forward. Can't wait to see what happens next. Let's finish up today's episode with an Unpop Roundup. Every week on GoTime, the panel and their guests share opinions that they believe will be unpopular with the listening audience. We take those opinions and conduct very scientific Twitter slash Macedon polls to see just how unpopular they are. Here's some recent results. On episode 266, David Wickes laid out a conspiracy theory about single-page apps. He surmises they were invented and popularized by large corporations

like Google so they can track us. That was 53% popular on Twitter, but 60% unpopular on Mastodon. Also on episode 266, Carson Gross said he thinks too many tech decisions are driven by people's fear of looking dumb. 94% of Twitter pollsters agreed, and 91% agreed on Mastodon. On episode 267, Carl Johnson claimed that only barbarians eat salad with a fork. He says you should use chopsticks instead. This was highly unpopular with 88% disagreeing on Twitter and 84% on Mastodon. Despite this very bad opinion by Carl, it did prompt Johnny to give some very good advice. Use chopsticks to eat Cheetos while you're coding.

On episode 271, Lee Anthony shared that he believes the best tool for the job isn't always the best tool for the job. 95% of poll takers agree with him, despite the statement being false as defined. And last but not least unpopular, even though I think the premise is preposterous, Matthew Boyle said on episode 273 that we should be able to take our laptops with us to the movies. This was 65% unpopular on Twitter, 89% unpopular on Macedon,

and made Matt Reier respond with, What? Yeah, that's kind of the reaction I get. What's the thinking there, mate? What's going on? Are you not interested in the film? That's the news for now. On Wednesday's interview show,

we are publishing our final anthology episode from this year's Open Source Summit. And on Friday on ChangeLogin, friends, Homebrew lead maintainer Mike McQuaid joins us to discuss the just-announced Vision Pro headset, Vision OS, and all the interesting bits from Apple's WWDC keynote. Have a great week. Share ChangeLog news with a friend who might dig it. And I'll talk to you again real soon.

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