(With the disclaimer that I have my head in a hole in the sand and have not experimented with ChatGPT yet): I feel like our needs are different than SO's, and we don't need an explicit ban on AI answers as such, but will have practical reasons that should stand in the way of them.
What I get from a quick glance at SO is:
- They've been apparently inundated by a high volume of ML-generated activity. If we saw that here perhaps it would be a problem, but we haven't so far.
- One of the main complaints is that it's "easy to make bad answers, but hard to tell they're bad." If you just paste in a block of code, you need what's essentially a code review to tell whether the answer is useful. A music answer might be easier to tell whether it's kinda good, truly useful, or off base.
It's interesting to look at your experiment. The AI answer is full of good information, and I might upvote it for "this is no replacement for good posture," but it's ultimate answer to "do I need them" is basically "Well, some do ok with them and some without, ask your teacher." Which is kind of a non-answer. The wishy-washiness is cloaked by extra info that wasn't actually asked for.
As it is, this is not a useless answer, and is certainly better than some human-generated ones. But it wouldn't win a ton of votes. I think it would be clear enough that someone a user generated content outside their actual knowledge if they were asked to clarify or challenged on details and couldn't respond. To my mind, if it's a lousy answer, it will get ignored; if it's an ok answer, then the more the merrier, and if it's actually a good answer, then why not!
Now, if we started seeing a flood of mediocre content, such that it overwhelmed more useful content, then we might have to do something. Or maybe some policy about individual intervention: Say a user just goes through dozens of questions in a day (including old ones, I guess, since we don't have that many new ones), dumping AI-generated answers. They're challenged by others to explain, clarify, or correct inadequate answers, but they never respond. None of the answers are so bad as to merit deletion, but they're just not up to snuff, and this user is not responding to reasonable requests that they slow down and give it more thought. In that case maybe some kind of moderator action against the user is warranted, but it's more about the volume than the quality.
As my own experiment, I just tried feeding ChatGPT this question, thinking it's surely a great example of what it wouldn't get right. Its answer was better than I expected:
"Sostenuto" is a term that means sustained or sustained and held. In this context, the composer is instructing the performer to hold or sustain the notes in a manner similar to the way the fourth string of a violin is played.
The fourth string of a violin is typically tuned to a D, and when played it produces a rich, full, and sustained sound. In order to suggest this sound on a keyboard instrument, the performer should aim to produce a sustained and even sound, with a focus on achieving a full and rich tone. This can be done through a combination of touch, pedaling, and dynamic shaping.
One way to achieve a sustained and full sound on a keyboard is to use the sustain pedal, which can be pressed down to sustain the notes being played. This can help to create a sense of continuity and flow in the music. Additionally, using a gentle touch and shaping the dynamics of the notes can also contribute to a sustained and full sound.
It's worth noting that different keyboard instruments, such as the harpsichord or clavichord, may require different approaches to achieve a sustained sound. In the case of a harpsichord, for example, the performer may need to use a technique called "loure" to achieve a sustained effect.
So I guess we see some of SO's concerns here: it's so rational that it gives a convincing impression of being written by a person, and even delivers a pretty reasonable "bad answer": It understands that we're telling a piano to imitate the tone (I even like its word choice of "... in order to suggest this sound"!) of a certain violin string. It handled the Italian translation for us. It's right that "tone" for a piano is a matter of "a combination of touch, pedaling, and dynamic shaping." But it has "the wrong end of the stick" in general, talking only about tone rather than timing, and of course missing the point that most of the humans focused on, the fact that this marking came from an editor rather than the composer. And it has a few glaring things just plain wrong: The "fourth string" is G, not D, and as far as I can tell, louré is only a bowed-strings technique, and not a harpsichord one. (Either ChatGPT is showing its ignorance or I am!)
Other users would have jumped down the throat of this answer with these mistakes (or maybe some kind soul would have edited the "D" to "G" assuming a typo). There would be little reward to the spammer for posting it.
EDIT: I clicked "Regenerate response" and ChatGPT tried again; this time there are no glaring errors and the answer is even more reasonable:
The word "sostenuto" in this context is an Italian musical term that means sustained or held out. It is often used to indicate that a musical line or phrase should be played in a sustained or legato style, with the notes connected smoothly and without interruption.
The instruction "come IVa corda di violino" means "like the fourth string of a violin." The fourth string of a violin is the lowest-pitched string on the instrument and has a rich, full sound. It is often used to play the lowest, most sustained notes in a piece of music.
To suggest this property on a keyboard, the player should aim to produce a sustained, legato sound by using the sustain pedal to hold the notes for a longer duration and by using a smooth, connected touch to play the notes. This can help create a sense of continuity and flow in the music, evoking the rich, full sound of the violin's fourth string.