"In a blog post, the Wikimedia Foundation, the organization that runs the popular online encyclopedia, called on AI developers to use its content "responsibly" by ensuring its contributions are properly attributed and that content is accessed through its paid product, the Wikimedia Enterprise platform. The opt-in, paid product allows companies to use Wikipedia's content at scale without "severely taxing Wikipedia's servers," the Wikimedia Foundation blog post explains."
"While the post doesn't go so far as to threaten penalties or any sort of legal action for use of its material through scraping, Wikipedia recently noted that AI bots had been scraping its website while trying to appear human. After updating its bot detection systems, the organization found that its unusually high traffic in May and June had come from AI bots that were trying to "evade detection." Meanwhile, it said that "human page views" had declined 8% year-over-year."
""For people to trust information shared on the internet, platforms should make it clear where the information is sourced from and elevate opportunities to visit and participate in those sources," the post reads. "With fewer visits to Wikipedia, fewer volunteers may grow and enrich the content, and fewer individual donors may support this work.""
Wikipedia positions its Wikimedia Enterprise product as an opt-in paid channel for AI companies to access content at scale without overloading servers and to financially support the nonprofit mission. The organization urges generative AI developers to provide attribution to credit volunteer contributors and to elevate opportunities for users to visit and participate on Wikipedia. Bot scraping and evasive AI traffic produced unusually high visits in May and June, prompting updated detection systems, while human page views declined 8% year-over-year. Fewer visits risk fewer volunteers and donors. Earlier plans include using AI to assist editors with repetitive workflows.
Read at TechCrunch
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