Wikipedia has decided to integrate generative AI technologies directly into its workflow. In a statement made by the Wikimedia Foundation, it was emphasized that this step was not taken to replace volunteer editors, but to relieve the technical and time-consuming workload on them.

Wikipedia is increasing its use of artificial intelligence

For years, the Foundation has been using artificial intelligence in processes such as vandalism detection, automatic translation, and readability analysis. However, for the first time, artificial intelligence systems will be used to directly assist editorial processes such as background research, content translations, and the orientation of new volunteers.

Wikimedia defines its editors as the cornerstone of the platform and states that generative AI cannot eliminate this structure. It was stated that the organization is based on a 25-year volunteer contribution model and that this model plays a key role in Wikipedia’s sustainability.

Wikipedia’s dependence on volunteer editors has become insufficient in the face of the increasing volume of content over the years. Because the speed of information production has outpaced the number of volunteer contributions. This picture is considered one of the risk factors for the future of the platform.

On the other hand, the unauthorized and intensive use of Wikipedia data by AI bots has also become a significant problem. As a precaution against this situation, Wikimedia has created an open access data set called “structured Wikipedia content” specially prepared for AI systems.

This aims to prevent Wikipedia’s function for human readers from being damaged by uncontrolled bot traffic. The foundation stated that the load of these bots on the servers causes an increase in bandwidth of up to 50 percent.

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