Navigating the Changing Landscape of Online Knowledge Consumption and Production in the Age of Generative AI: Evidence from Stack Overflow

2026-09-29

AI Summary

This study investigates how generative AI reshapes information production, consumption, and participation returns within online knowledge communities. Leveraging Stack Overflow data, the authors employ a quasi-natural experimental design to empirically compare behavioral trajectories across distinct user cohorts before and after the release of ChatGPT. The findings reveal that AI access does not yield equitable participation opportunities: consumers increasingly shift toward low-recognition content production, whereas producers concentrate on emerging topics and reap higher returns. This work demonstrates that generative AI exacerbates the blurring of knowledge roles and fails to uniformly enhance community influence across all users. By providing novel empirical evidence regarding the structural transformation of knowledge communities under AI disruption, this research advances our understanding of how generative technologies fundamentally reconfigure participatory dynamics in digital platforms.

Abstract

Online knowledge communities rely on a division of epistemic labor between users who seek information and those who produce it. Generative AI may blur these roles, but how it reallocates knowledge-seeking and knowledge-producing activities and reshapes the nature and returns of participation remains unclear. We examine changes in question-asking and answering among Stack Overflow user groups, focusing on consumers and producers, following the release of ChatGPT. Consumers shifted from asking questions to producing answers, but their answers were less likely to be accepted relative to the pre-ChatGPT period, suggesting that increased production did not yield equal standing in the community. By contrast, producers did not change the number of questions they asked, but increasingly asked about novel and emerging topics. Although they produced fewer answers, their answers received greater recognition. These findings show that access to generative AI does not necessarily translate into equal opportunities for successful participation.

Problem

• Generative AI
• Online knowledge communities
• Stack Overflow
• Epistemic labor
• Knowledge production

Innovation

• Generative AI
• Online Knowledge Communities
• Epistemic Labor
• Stack Overflow
• User Behavior