Use AI: Will it replace human editors?

With artificial intelligence currently leading the tech industry, it’s only logical that Wikipedia would aim to adopt it too. Recently, the Wikimedia Foundation unveiled its 3-year strategy to integrate AI into its framework. Nevertheless, in light of increasing worries that AI could jeopardize human jobs, the company has clarified that it does not plan to substitute its human editors while incorporating AI into its platform. It is devising a plan to implement AI to introduce new functionalities designed to overcome technical obstacles.

The Wikimedia Foundation states, “We will use AI to build features that remove technical barriers to allow the humans at the core of Wikipedia to spend their valuable time on what they want to accomplish, and not on how to technically achieve it. Our investments will be focused on specific areas where generative AI excels, all in the service of creating unique opportunities that will boost Wikipedia’s volunteers.”

Along with this announcement, the company has specified the precise areas in which it seeks the AI to operate. One method is that the moderators and patrollers will gain from automated processes that handle repetitive tasks, assisting in maintaining content accuracy and integrity. Meanwhile, editors will have increased time for meaningful discussion, teamwork, and reaching agreements due to enhanced information discoverability. The platform additionally seeks to enhance local viewpoints by streamlining the translation and localization of widely discussed subjects. Additionally, Wikipedia intends to simplify the process for new volunteers to engage by offering organized mentorship and a more user-friendly onboarding experience.

The company has stated, “We believe that our future work with AI will be successful not only because of what we do, but how we do it.” It added, “Our efforts will use our long-held values, principles, and policies (like privacy and human rights) as a compass: we will take a human-centered approach and will prioritise human agency; we will prioritise using open-source or open-weight AI; we will prioritise transparency; and we will take a nuanced approach to multilinguality, a fundamental part of Wikipedia.”

The organisation also highlighted that safeguarding Wikipedia’s knowledge base has become increasingly vital in the era of generative AI, which is known to occasionally produce errors or fabricate information.