Wikipedia's pilot program for AI-generated summaries faced severe criticism from its volunteer editors, leading to a halt in the program. The project, aimed at enhancing user learning, had been initiated during a discussion at Wikimedia's 2024 conference. Supporters of the idea believed it would innovate the platform, but editor feedback labeled the AI summaries as unreliable, risking the site's reputation for accuracy and trustworthiness. Concerns were voiced about generative AI's potential to undermine Wikipedia's established principles of community editing and fact verification.
Even Wikipedia, the vast repository of knowledge famously maintained by an army of volunteer human editors, is looking to add robots to the mix.
The editors who participated in the discussion believed the summaries could improve learning on Wikipedia.
I feel like people seriously underestimate the brand risk this sort of thing has.
Wikipedia's brand is reliability, traceability of changes, and 'anyone can fix it.' AI is the opposite of these things.
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