Will AI Signal the End for Wikipedia?

Ever since its domain was registered in January, 2001, Wikipedia has evolved into a trusted and objective informational resource that’s available in 332 different languages.

For more than two decades, this resource has continued to thrive, with its 265,000-strong army of active and engaged volunteers helping to maintain the accuracy of individual articles and the site’s integrity. 

There’s an incredibly diverse range of datasets available too, from historical battles and celebrity personas to the latest GGPoker tournaments with bonuses. 

However, Wiki has always faced significant challenges, including sustainable funding and the need to regularly update articles in real-time. This is becoming even harder in the post-truth age of misinformation, where artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to make or break Wikipedia’s future.

Laying Out the AI Challenge

At the time of writing, Wikipedia has published 6,865,462 articles on the English site alone and records more than 16 billion visits each month. 

These figures highlight the site’s prolific and prestigious nature, which have helped Wikipedia to become an incredibly trusted, popular and accessible source of information in the digital age.

In the aforementioned age of misinformation, however, Wiki is also arguably the best place in which to insert and share false data and narratives. 

Then there’s AI. ChatGPT and increasingly advanced AI platforms are now more than capable of creating credible but false texts in an incredibly high volume, generating potentially huge swathes of misinformation that Wikipedia may struggle to counter.

How is Wikipedia Dealing with the Threat?

If there’s one thing that can be said about Wikipedia and their co-founder Jimmy Wales, it’s that they’re incredibly adaptable. So, it’s no surprise that they immediately expanded their own machine learning team and capabilities after the launch of ChatGPT, with Wales citing AI as both “a threat and an opportunity”.

Of course, Wikipedia editors have already uncovered AI-penned texts, with new editors using this technology to create extended and well-structured pages. However, seasoned editors can spot AI-generated content, while the site is also using dedicated software to highlight pages that haven’t been written by humans.

Of course, there’s always a risk that false information and AI-penned articles can become prevalent among Wikidepia’s 62 million global articles. However, the site’s core strength lies in its human moderation and commitment to minimising the publication of AI content, alongside its ongoing drive to publish honest and accurate articles.

If this can be maintained, Wikipedia will continue to shine like a beacon of honesty and integrity in a post-truth world.

The Last Word

Certainly, human-led models of content creation and moderation will stand out as AI becomes increasingly prevalent, especially among consumers who are in search of accurate and objective information that’s easy to understand.

This is why Wikipedia’s co-founder sees opportunity in the rise of AI: not because the site will use it to create or edit content, but because their global team of human contributors will set them apart from their competition in the future.

In this respect, Wiki must resolve its long-term funding issue. Notwithstanding the site’s rules for citation and consensus model, it may not be able to sustain such a large team of motivated volunteers indefinitely.

Resolving this issue will require a sustainable source of funding, otherwise the lure of AI content-generation may become dominant over time.