The black irony of Wikipedia: it is a very valuable source for generative AI and at the same time it is what is killing it
Wikipedia, a vital source for generative AI, faces an ironic threat as its traffic declines due to the technology it feeds. The Wikimedia Foundation has removed AI-generated summaries from Wikipedia articles. Concerns arose after multiple instances of inaccurate information and complaints from human editors. A report published on the foundation's blog by Marshall Miller, the product director, highlights an 8% drop in human traffic between May and August 2025. This decline is attributed to generative AI, like chatbots and features such as Google's AI Overview, which provide direct answers without users clicking links. These AI tools directly utilize Wikipedia's content. This shift presents a challenge to Wikipedia's sustainability. Users are accessing information created by its volunteers without visiting the website, resulting in fewer visits. This mirrors the situation faced by news outlets, where AI-powered summaries from Google are diminishing traffic to their sites. This situation underscores the complex relationship between AI and content platforms, raising questions about how to balance the benefits of AI with the need to protect the sources of the data that fuels it. The future of online information and its accessibility is being reshaped by these developments.
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