Then we first meet Shula (Susan Chardy), the quietly unbending protagonist of “On Becoming a Guinea Fowl,” she is driving home from a fancy-dress party, wearing dark shades, a gleaming metal helmet, and a puffy black jumpsuit—it looks like an inflated trash bag—that engulfs her from the neck down. Some
A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on. — Winston Churchill
Large Language Models (LLMs) are now a major source of information for many people. Especially because of their ability to answer any question asked of them (even if it contains some errors), replacing some of the users’ main sources. For example, many sites, such as Stack Overflow or Quora, have seen a decrease in the number of visits. Wikipedia has changed the way we search for information and undermined the use of traditional encyclopedias. Wikipedia is an important source for many researchers, students, and even LLMs. In fact, a great many datasets have been created from Wikipedia data, and it is an important quality source for training various datasets. At the same time, it was proposed to use LLMs to enhance Wikipedia, articles, Wikidata, and editing processes.
If this is a possibility, how does the arrival of LLMs impact Wikipedia? Could the use of AI-generated text harm Wikipedia? This article talks about exactly that and how if AI-generated text becomes widespread in Wikipedia, the effects could be very problematic. Artificial intelligence is transforming our world, shaping how we live and work. Understanding how it works and its implications has never been more crucial. If you’re looking for simple, clear explanations of complex AI topics, you’re in the right place. Hit Follow or subscribe for free to stay updated with my latest stories and insights. Previous studies have shown that rewriting articles with artificial intelligence can lead to different conclusions for an article. In fact, LLMs are not free of bias and do not necessarily respect Wikipedia’s neutrality. For this and other reasons, some studies have suggested that Wikipedia quality may be impacted by the arrival of bots and AI-generated text: We believe the greatest threat to Wikipedia stems from the fact that Wikipedia is a user-generated product, relying on the “selfish altruism” of its human contributors. Contributors who reduce their contribution efforts as AI pervades the platform, will thus leave Wikipedia increasingly dependent on additional AI activity. — source In other words, there could be a vicious cycle where in the long run most of the text on Wikipedia is written by AI. Obviously, this is a possibility, though a recent study has begun to investigate the issue. After all, Wikipedia already contains some AI-produced text.