Wikipedia Pauses AI-Generated Summaries After Editor Backlash (404media.co)
- Reference: 0178009795
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/06/11/1732215/wikipedia-pauses-ai-generated-summaries-after-editor-backlash
- Source link: https://www.404media.co/wikipedia-pauses-ai-generated-summaries-after-editor-backlash/
The experiment, called "Simple Article Summaries," would have used Cohere's open-weight Aya model to generate simplified versions of complex Wikipedia articles. The AI-generated summaries would have appeared at the top of articles with a yellow "unverified" label, requiring users to click to expand and read them. Editors responded with comments including "very bad idea," "strongest possible oppose," and simply "Yuck."
[1] https://www.404media.co/wikipedia-pauses-ai-generated-summaries-after-editor-backlash/
Thanks editors (Score:3)
The last thing we would want is inaccuracies in wikipedia. lol
Re:Thanks editors (Score:4, Insightful)
Not "left wing". Fact based, Science based. Not made up MAGA BS. This war on science has to stop, you can not win. The facts are against you.
Re: (Score:2)
Not according to their own editorial policies, which prohibit using primary sources, and will [1]remove updates that correct factual errors because of it. [npr.org]
They have said that Wikipedia is a popularity contest for factoids, and that actual facts are not allowed if they aren't popular enough. And proved they mean it.
[1] https://www.npr.org/2012/10/03/162203092/wikipedia-politicizes-landmark-historical-event
Re:Thanks editors (Score:4, Informative)
"Not according to their own editorial policies, which prohibit using primary sources,"
100% false. From wikipedia itself (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_and_using_primary_sources#%22Primary%22_does_not_mean_%22bad%22): "Sometimes, a primary source is even the best possible source"
Re: (Score:2)
Citing Wikipedia as a source on how credible Wikipedia is makes you look stoopid.
Go read the link. Or not. We both know you won't.
Re: (Score:2)
You were the one who made the claim that it was "in Wikipedia's own policies." Have fun eating your own words.
Re: (Score:3)
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
This seems to confirm what the OP is saying.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_and_using_primary_sources#Secondary_sources_for_notability
Re: (Score:2)
And the link I provided is a first hand account of how it's enforced. But Skippy won't read it.
Re: (Score:2)
So you have one example where one cite/edit in one article was rolled back because some other editor didn't like the source, and your conclusion is wikipedia "prohibit[s] using primary sources". That, good sir, is what you call a "logic bust". Especially when paired with the link from Wikipedia themselves stating that primary sources can be used in certain situations.
Re: Thanks editors (Score:2)
I support them whether I believe that's a fact or not.
I don't believe you're not a maggot, though.
Re: (Score:2)
"I'm not "maga" or even in the USA but Wikipedia is lousy with jobless communists and leftists.", .......... Oh then, you should be able to give even one example. MAGA's either just lie, or the give one example about a green person doing a bad thing, and they say all green persons do that thing.
Sell your AI bubble stocks (Score:1, Troll)
Has there ever been a single time that someone rolled out an AI product and the entire community, customer base, and company employees had a positive reaction to it? I just resorted to using it to solve a REALLY annoying powershell problem this morning and all it gave me was made up, stitched together bullshit that didn't function because the commands mixed versions and didn't match the module it said to use.
AI has its uses (Score:5, Insightful)
But it is too primitive and sloppy for complex data generation, try again next year
Re: (Score:2)
AI is what it is, so I agree it is too primitive now for complex data generation. It is.. like a child. not a human child. It does simple things great, and complex things poorly... in my humble opinion.. What I would like to see as a programmer is for an AI company to attach micro-controller simulators to the AI's, and before they confidently give me a solution, to run it past a simulator. If it does not work, the AI say's: this is my best solution but it does not work. Instead it says: "This wor
I think it is a good idea. (Score:2)
I like the Google AI summaries. I only go to google for stupid trivia questions. The AI gives me what I want. For Wikipedia, I'm like.... why not? A simple summary that is only available if I click a "+" button... why not? For any personal searches, I use Startpage, or DuckDuckgo, and I use the DuckDuckgo anon AI's at work to help me with coding, and it is excellent at simple structures and syntax.
Re: (Score:1)
Check out kagi.com you get the best of both worlds.
Kagi's search is an aggregated engine of about a dozen big to small search engines (google included) without the ads & seo.
It also has a weight system that you can use to remove or highlight sites yourself.
It's AI functions are better that any of the free stuff out there.
It's only downside is it's a paid service since there's no ads and they do not save/sell your data.
Re: (Score:2)
"It's only downside is it's a paid service since there's no ads and they do not save/sell your data.". I think that is a feature, and not a downside. The downside of the current internet, in my humble opinion, is that people do not realize that you pay for everything one way or another, with your soul or with $$, and way to many people sold their soul.
Re: (Score:2)
> I like the Google AI summaries.
I detest Google AI summaries. They don't tell you where the AI got the information, so I don't have any way to know whether the informatin is reliable.
Re: (Score:2)
I should have that opinion too, as they do not give sources. I was "trained" to not give information without citing the source. However, Google does give me answers as to why the sky is blue, for example. I do not use Google for anything serious.
AI summaries will just move (Score:3)
Google already generates them, and people will just not bother clicking through to Wikipedia.
I personally would find AI summaries useful, for a lot of Wikipedia articles that are very, very long-winded.
Re: (Score:2)
I like the detail in Wikipedia. For example, for some reason, I want to know how the chemistry works when wood is heated up, and gas is extracted for clean burners for cooking, or for running cars (yes, at one time, there were cars that gassified wood and fed it into engines, bang bang bang). At times, I like just reading a quick summary of a definition of a word. I think Wikipedia is the "bomb", love it.
Re: (Score:2)
Agreed, and I've even contributed to their fundraising campaigns.
Re: (Score:2)
If they're accurate, right? Like... you actually care if the technology can generate accurate summaries? Because at this point there's lots of evidence that AI-generated summaries contain lots of mistakes.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes of course. Hallucinations will happen whether Wikipedia's AI generates the summaries, or Google generates the summaries. That fact will not stop Google from generating the summaries, and it won't stop users from assuming the summary is accurate.
The summary is already there in the article (Score:2)
If I wanted to read a summary of a lengthy and complex wikipedia article, I would just read the first few paragraphs. The summary is right there.
In fact, any use of AI for text summary is a bit suspect. Why wasn't the summary included by the authors in the first place? Any decent news article or scientific paper has one.
Re: (Score:2)
One possible answer to that answer is that AI's have this ability to digest information and summarize it in a different way than a human can. In fact, from what I read, College students are feeding spreadsheets and long, droll blah blah blah stuff into AI's to get a summary, and asking it different questions to get a unique perspective on the data or information. That is what I am understanding about this "revolution", and am interested in hearing about other perspectives.
Re: The summary is already there in the article (Score:2)
I do that. Use ai to get possibly a new angle I hadn't thought of. Nothing coming out of an AI should be taken at face value ... everything must be tested. It's often a good starting point.
Re: (Score:2)
I feed my code into AI's randomly on DuckDuckgo. It spits out comments on my code and some insights. I find them all very cool.
They should also get rid of other bot generations (Score:1)
The Cebunano Wikipedia is a known embarrassment for Wikipedia, and then there is the "Wikifunctions" project that want to make glorified templates and sql queries into "articles". Wikipedia got a lot of its start from "RamBot" all the way back in 2002, when US census data was dumped into the wiki. Wikipedia is kind of a bad word these days, but it needs to redeem itself and become an example of human edited content in the age of AI slop.
Re: (Score:2)
I still find Wikipedia as useful as it ever was, but you seem to have some good details on it -- why is it a bad word to you these days?
Re: (Score:3)
> I still find Wikipedia as useful as it ever was
That is very, very low praise.
Re: (Score:2)
I have had too many bad experiences with Wikipedia, I can also tell when AI is sourcing its text from Wikipedia too. The internet is really messed up now.
Re: (Score:2)
Now? Dude, where have you been for the last 35 years?
Re: (Score:3)
> The Cebunano Wikipedia is a known embarrassment for Wikipedia,
Not sure why we care one way or another about the Wikipedia version in an obscure language. This is really your number one complaint about Wikipedia? That many of the pages in a language that about a quarter of one percent of the world speaks were produced by machine translation of articles in English? That's pretty minor.
> and then there is the "Wikifunctions" project that want to make glorified templates and sql queries into "articles".
THIS is your number two complaint about Wikipedia? That it has templates to do routine math, like calculating dates?
The laughable nature of what you think is wrong with Wikipedia make me l
Re:They should also get rid of other bot generatio (Score:4, Funny)
Wikifunctions isn't even part of Wikipedia. It's an entirely separate Wiki that just happens to be run by the same organization. It's like saying you don't watch NBC News because Universal Pictures made Howard the Duck.