Wikipedia cancels plan to check AI summaries after editors skewer the concept

Wikipedia is backing off a plan to check AI article summaries. Earlier this month, the platform introduced plans to trial the function for about 10 p.c of cellular internet guests. To say they weren’t well-received by editors can be an understatement. The Wikimedia Basis (WMF) then modified plans and cancelled the check.

The AI summaries would have appeared on the prime of articles for 10 p.c of cellular customers. Readers would have needed to decide in to see them. The AI-generated summaries solely appeared “on a set of articles” for the two-week trial interval.

Editor feedback within the WMF’s announcement (via 404 Media) ranged from “Yuck” to “Grinning with horror.” One editor wrote, “Simply because Google has rolled out its AI summaries does not imply we have to one-up them. I sincerely beg you to not check this, on cellular or anyplace else. This could do rapid and irreversible hurt to our readers and to our fame as a decently reliable and critical supply.”

“Wikipedia has in some methods turn into a byword for sober boringness, which is superb,” the editor continued. “Let’s not insult our readers’ intelligence and be a part of the stampede to roll out flashy AI summaries.”

Editors’ gripes weren’t restricted to the concept. In addition they criticized the nonprofit for excluding them from the planning part. “You additionally say this has been ‘mentioned,’ which is totally laughable because the ‘dialogue’ you hyperlink to has precisely one participant, the unique poster, who’s one other WMF worker,” an editor wrote.

A Wikimedia Basis spokesperson shared the next assertion with Engadget:

“The Wikimedia Basis has been exploring methods to make Wikipedia and different Wikimedia tasks more accessible to readers globally. This two-week, opt-in experiment was centered on making complicated Wikipedia articles extra accessible to individuals with different reading levels. For the needs of this experiment, the summaries have been generated by an open-weight Aya mannequin by Cohere. It was meant to gauge curiosity in a function like this, and to assist us take into consideration the correct of group moderation techniques to make sure people stay central to deciding what data is proven on Wikipedia.

For these experiments, our normal course of consists of discussing with volunteers (who create and curate all the knowledge on Wikipedia) to make choices on whether or not and find out how to proceed with constructing options. The dialogue round this function is an instance of this course of, the place we constructed out a prototype of an concept and reached out to the Wikipedia volunteer group for his or her ideas.

It’s common to obtain quite a lot of suggestions from volunteers, and we incorporate it in our choices, and typically change course. We welcome such considerate suggestions — that is what continues to make Wikipedia a very collaborative platform of human data.

As shared in our latest post on the group dialogue web page, we wouldn’t have any plans to proceed the experiment in the intervening time, as we proceed to evaluate and talk about the suggestions now we have already obtained from volunteers.”Within the “dialogue” web page, the group defined that it wished to cater to its viewers’s wants. “Many readers want some simplified textual content along with the principle content material,” a WMF worker wrote. “In earlier analysis, we heard that readers wished to have an choice to get a fast overview of a subject previous to leaping into studying the total article.”

The group did not rule out future makes use of of AI. However they stated editors will not be left at the hours of darkness subsequent time. “Bringing generative AI into the Wikipedia studying expertise is a critical set of choices, with necessary implications, and we intend to deal with it as such,” the spokesperson instructed 404 Media. “We wouldn’t have any plans for bringing a abstract function to the wikis with out editor involvement.”

Replace, June 13, 2025, 12:52PM ET: This story has been corrected to notice that Wikipedia by no means truly began its AI abstract check. The plan was introduced, however cancelled earlier than it passed off. An announcement from the Wikimedia Basis has additionally been added, and the headline has been up to date as nicely.