Too bad stack overflow didn't high-quality-LLM itself early. I assume it had the computer-related brainpower.

with respect to the "moderation is the cause" thing... Although I also don't buy moderation as the cause, I wonder if any sort of friction from the "primary source of data" can cause acceleration.

for example, when I'm doing an interenet search for the definition of a word like buggywhip, some search results from the "primary source" show:

> buggy whip, n. meanings, etymology and more | Oxford English Dictionary

> Factsheet What does the noun buggy whip mean? There is one meaning in OED's entry for the noun buggy whip. See 'Meaning & use' for definition, usage, and quotation evidence.

which are non-answer to keep their traffic.

but the AI answer is... the answer.

If SO early on had had some clear AI answer + references, I think that would have kept people on their site.

The meta post describing the policy of banning AI-generated answers from the site (https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/421831) is the most popular of all time. Company interference with moderator attempts to enforce that policy lead to a moderator strike. The community is vehemently against the company's current repeated attempts to sneak AI into the system, which have repeatedly produced embarrassing results (see for example https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/425081 and https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/425162 ; https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/427807 ; https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/425766 etc.).

What you propose is a complete non-starter.