The Overflow #177: The AI is the UI

Welcome to ISSUE #177 of The Overflow! This newsletter is by developers, for developers, written and curated by the Stack Overflow team and Cassidy Williams. This week: how to handle any failure in production, why hackers are trying to trick your webserver into doing math, and what makes perpetual motion potentially possible at a quantum level.

From the blog

The 2023 Developer Survey is now live! stackoverflow.blog
We want to know about all the technology that makes you swoon and scoff.

AI isn’t the app, it’s the UI stackoverflow.blog
A realistic understanding of generative AI can guide us to its ideal use case: not a decision-maker or unsupervised agent tucked away from the end user, but an interface between humans and machines.

Don’t panic! A playbook for managing any production incident stackoverflow.blog
Knowing how to handle it when things break is more important, and practical, than trying to prevent things from ever breaking at all.

How to land a job in climate tech stackoverflow.blog
Climate tech is a niche industry and requires specific strategies to get a job in.

When AI meets IP: Can artists sue AI imitators? (Ep. 566) stackoverflow.blog
Ben and Ceora talk through some thorny issues around AI-generated music and art, explain why creators are suing AI companies for copyright infringement, and compare notes on the most amusing/alarming AI-generated content making the rounds (Pope coat, anyone?).

Train a music playlist recommendation engine promotion
A team of data scientists built a music recommendation engine that can scale to search over 4 billion user-created playlists. Read how they used MongoDB as part of a scalable ETL pipeline to train their deep learning model.

Interesting questions

Is it possible to have satellites (natural or not) orbit the same celestial object in different directions (clockwise, counterclockwise)? astronomy.stackexchange.com
Ah, the rebellious moons of Jupiter.

SQL Server with multiple databases (one per client) – what is the best security practice in terms of logins/users/permissions? dba.stackexchange.com
If one user can access all your separate databases, then they aren’t so separate, are they?

Would a satyr wear horseshoes? worldbuilding.stackexchange.com
Goat shoeing was originally the festival of Satyr-nail-ya.

What vulnerability is a math operation in an HTTP request trying to exploit? security.stackexchange.com
They’re trying to get your web server to do their homework.

Links from around the web

The web’s most important decision thehistoryoftheweb.com
Thirty years ago, the World Wide Web was made free for everyone, a decision that arguably changed…everything.

The interactive guide to rendering in React ui.dev
React’s rendering behavior is often misunderstood—on Stack Overflow, “why is React rendering?” yields over 8000 results. Here’s a deep dive to answer your questions!

Is perpetual motion possible at the quantum level? www.quantamagazine.org
Just what the MCU needed.

Wingspan design retrospective with designer Elizabeth Hargrave youtu.be
Wingspan is one of the most highly rated board games that’s come out in recent years. Come geek out about how it was made!

If you’re curious about our other products: How to get started with Stack Overflow for Teams.