Wikipedia is shutting the door on AI-written articles

Wikipedia's editors approved a policy on March 20 barring the use of large language models to generate or revise entries on the encyclopedia, according to 404media.co and The Verge. The measure passed by a vote of 40 to 2.

The new rule applies to English-language Wikipedia and says that AI-generated text often breaks the site’s main content policies. There are two exceptions: editors can use AI tools for basic copyediting on their own writing, as long as the tool does not add new content, and they can use AI to help translate non-English entries into English if they know the source language well enough to check the translation.

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Some contributors may naturally produce text that reads like LLM output, the guidelines note, warning reviewers against treating writing style alone as sufficient basis for action. A contributor's editing record and whether the text holds up against Wikipedia's content rules are the recommended measures instead.

Ilyas Lebleu, an editor who uses the name Chaotic Enby on the platform, submitted the proposal. WikiProject AI Cleanup, an editor-led initiative that identifies and corrects AI-generated content on the platform, contributed to drafting the rule.

Editors had been dealing with a mounting volume of LLM-related administrative reports on the platform, according to 404media. "More and more administrative reports centered on LLM-related issues, and editors were being overwhelmed," Lebleu said. A narrower measure passed previously, limiting LLM restrictions to the generation of wholly original entries; a subsequent push to extend those rules into a broader policy did not clear the bar.

The community had also made it easier to delete AI-generated entries, according to The Verge. Both the Wikimedia Foundation and the editor community had previously stopped short of blanket AI bans, in part because the site already relies on certain automated systems and because AI-assisted tools were viewed as potentially useful to editors down the line.

Lebleu told 404media that comparable policies at StackOverflow and the German-language Wikipedia could set off a chain reaction across other platforms, driven by what he described as mounting anxiety surrounding the AI bubble.

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