After a few months of debate, lWikipedia editors have decided that generative artificial intelligence cannot be used to create, expand or edit articles in the world’s largest encyclopedia.
That’s not to say Wikipedia is against all AI. It will be able to be used for some tasks, as we will see.
Anyone can edit on Wikipedia, but there are a series of rules that you must follow if you do not want your articles to be deleted. These rules were updated a few days ago to include the veto to AIas has been discovered The Verge.
Wikipedia does not want “AI Slop”
For over 20 years, this project has attempted to collect human knowledge, through humans. But in recent years, numerous articles created with AI have appeared, many of them of low quality.
The editors do not want a methodical work of 20 years to be ruined by the AI Slopthe trash created with AI, which has already ruined YouTube, TikTok, and other social networks.
In Wikipedia’s new guidelines, approved by “an overwhelming majority” of editors, Generative AI is prohibited in articles.
However, Wikipedia is not anti AI. There are tools that can be very useful, and save work.
For example, the use of artificial intelligence is allowed to “suggest basic corrections” in articles, but only “if they do not provide their own content.” Come on, like a traditional spell checker, which finds errors but does not write texts.
Also AI can be used to translate articles into other languages. In this case, the editor is required to have knowledge of the original language, so that he can review the text and verify that the AI has not altered it.
Wikipedia has been on the verge of being taken down by AI bots, which continually come to extract data with the order “download the entire Wikipedia”, saturating its servers. It has reached an agreement with the main AI companies to offer them the data already formatted for AI through a separate channel, so as not to overwhelm the main servers.
The ban on generative AI in the creation and editing of Wikipedia articlesseems a decision consistent with the objectives of the project. We’ll see if the editors respect this new rule…