Wikipedia on Monday proposed a simple plan to ensure that its website can continue to be supported in the era of artificial intelligence, even as its traffic is declining. In a blog post, the Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia, called on AI developers to use Wikipedia content "responsibly" by requiring proper attribution of sources and obtaining content through its paid product Wikimedia Enterprise platform instead of directly scraping website data.
The paid product is voluntary and allows companies to use Wikipedia content on a large scale without "significant impact on Wikipedia servers." The foundation explained in a blog post that its fee model also provides funding for AI companies to support the nonprofit mission of the organization.
Although the statement did not mention penalties or legal action for scraping content, Wikipedia has previously pointed out that AI bots have tried to crawl its website data pretending to be human users. After updating the robot detection system, the agency discovered that the abnormally high number of visits in May and June this year was actually caused by AI robots "trying to evade detection." At the same time, human visits fell by 8% year-on-year.
Now, Wikipedia has put forward specific guidelines for AI developers and providers, saying that generative AI developers need to attribute attribution to human contributors and clarify the source of data to increase the credibility of Internet information.
"For people to trust information on the web, platforms should clearly display the sources of information and increase the opportunities for users to access and engage with those sources," the blog reads. "As fewer people visit Wikipedia, so will the number of volunteers and donor support involved in building content."
Earlier this year, the Wikimedia Foundation released an AI strategy for editors, stating that it would use AI to assist editors in boring and repetitive tasks, automatic translation, etc. - to "help rather than replace" them.
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