Wikipedia announces new AI strategy to 'support human editors'

The Wikimedia Foundation outlined its new AI strategy on Wednesday, stressing that it’s decided to use AI as a tool to support editors, not replace them.

“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,” Chris Albon, the Wikimedia Foundation’s director of machine learning, and Leila Zia, the foundation’s head of research, wrote in a blog post outlining the changes. (Also announced Wednesday, by the way: The Wikimedia Foundation is one of five finalists for a $100 million MacArthur grant.)

From the strategy brief:

…We recommend investing in AI to support the editors as follows:

Prioritize AI assisted workflows in support of moderators and patrollers. The recent advancements in AI, particularly generative AI, have made content generation significantly easier and that introduces significant risk for the editors and the projects as validating content remains costly. Thousands of hard-to-detect Wikipedia hoaxes and other forms of misinformation and disinformation (see Asaf Bartov’s presentation in CEE 2024 for examples) can be produced in minutes. Therefore we should prioritize using AI to support knowledge integrity and increase the moderator’s capacity to maintain Wikipedia’s quality. Overloading editors with the task of managing an influx of AI-assisted content risks burnout and compromises Wikipedia’s quality and existence. This focus on workflows for moderators and patrollers ensures Wikipedia remains a trusted source, allowing editors to do their work effectively.

Create more time for editing, human judgment, discussion, and consensus building. Editors spend a significant amount of time before they can edit Wikipedia. Part of this time is invested in finding the information they need for their editing, discussion, or decision making. AI excels at handling tasks such as information retrieval, translation, and pattern detection. By automating these repetitive tasks, AI frees up editors’ time to focus on areas of encyclopedic work that require human expertise: editing, discussions, consensus building, and making judgment calls in complex situations where the stakes are high and the impact is significant.

Create more time for editors to share local perspectives or context on a topic. Editors of less represented languages face pressure to create more content in their local languages. Automating the translation and adaptation of common topics (examples of such common topics include but is not limited to “List of articles every Wikipedia should have/Expanded“) allows editors to enrich the encyclopedic knowledge with cultural and local knowledge and nuances that AI models cannot provide. This allows editors to invest more time in creating content that strengthens Wikipedia as a diverse, global encyclopedia.

Engage new generations of editors with guided mentorship, workflows and assistance. Editors drive knowledge curation and governance. For the projects to be multigenerational, new editors must encounter editing workflows that fit their expectations and must find effective ways to get help. AI offers opportunities for generating valuable types of suggested edits that make sense for a new generation. And generative AI in particular offers a promising solution for automated mentoring and guidance of newcomers. AI can provide personalized support, from retrieving information and understanding policies to giving feedback on edits, helping newcomers feel confident and capable.

You can read some good discussion of the policy over at Hacker News.