● Covered by 3 sources · 3 reportsLow impact1 negative2 neutral
Academics urged to defend Wikipedia against generative AI's impact on readership
Key points
- Generative AI diverts traffic from Wikipedia.
- Declining readership threatens Wikipedia's volunteer community.
- AI models rely on Wikipedia for training data.
- Academics are called to defend open knowledge systems.
- Wikimedia Foundation filed an amicus brief in AI copyright lawsuits.
- The brief was filed in cases including The New York Times vs. OpenAI.
- Wikimedia argues AI training on copyrighted work should be fair use.
- Wikimedia argues AI regurgitating content without attribution should not be fair use.
- Wikimedia Foundation filed an amicus brief in The New York Times' copyright lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft.
- The brief advocates for a nuanced approach to fair use in AI.
- The brief suggests both overly restrictive and overly permissive fair use interpretations could harm the open web.
- Wikimedia proposes applying fair use to specific AI use cases like model training and RAG.
- Wikimedia's brief suggests fair use applies if attribution is maintained.
Generative AI's Impact on Wikipedia
Generative AI products, such as Google's Gemini and ChatGPT, provide immediate answers to users, often including links to Wikipedia. However, most users do not click these links, preferring to accept machine-generated outputs without further verification. This practice is leading to a decline in Wikipedia's readership.
Threat to Wikipedia's Volunteer Model
Wikipedia is maintained by a volunteer community responsible for writing, coding, and administration. This community is largely drawn from Wikipedia's readership. A continued decline in readers could lead to fewer articles, updates, and corrections, potentially rendering the encyclopedia derelict or defunct. This would represent a loss for both humanity and the AI industry, which heavily relies on Wikipedia's content for training its systems.
Wikipedia as a Community and Resource
Wikipedia is a self-governing community that operates independently of commercial or governmental controls, dedicated to producing and sharing knowledge for the common good. It has been more successful than commercial encyclopedias like Microsoft's Encarta and xAI's Grokipedia. Despite its influence, powerful AI companies pose challenges by diverting readers and using volunteer-generated content, sometimes through unauthorized scraping, while others like Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta pay for API access.
Academia's Role in Defense
Helen Choi contends that academics, due to their responsibilities as researchers and teachers in higher education, have an ethical obligation to defend and support open knowledge communities such as Wikipedia. This defense is seen as crucial for the preservation of a vital public resource.
Updates
- Wikimedia Foundation filed an amicus brief in The New York Times' copyright lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft.
- The brief advocates for a nuanced approach to fair use in AI.
- The brief suggests both overly restrictive and overly permissive fair use interpretations could harm the open web.
- Wikimedia proposes applying fair use to specific AI use cases like model training and RAG.
- Wikimedia's brief suggests fair use applies if attribution is maintained.
- Wikimedia Foundation filed an amicus brief in AI copyright lawsuits.
- The brief was filed in cases including The New York Times vs. OpenAI.
- Wikimedia argues AI training on copyrighted work should be fair use.
- Wikimedia argues AI regurgitating content without attribution should not be fair use.
✨ This summary was generated by AI from the outlets' reporting listed below. It is not independently verified and may contain errors — check the original sources. How BrevFeed works →
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How outlets covered it
The Wikimedia Foundation filed an amicus brief in The New York Times' copyright lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, advocating for a nuanced approach to fair use in AI. The brief suggests that both overly restrictive and overly permissive interpretations of fair use could harm the open web and technological innovation. Wikimedia proposes applying fair use to specific AI use cases like certain model training scenarios and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), provided attribution is maintained.
The Wikimedia Foundation filed an amicus brief in AI copyright lawsuits, including The New York Times vs. OpenAI, arguing for a middle ground on fair use. It states that training AI on copyrighted work should be fair use, but AI models regurgitating content without attribution should not be. The Foundation fears oversimplified rulings could either hinder AI tools for Wikipedia or endanger the open web by allowing AI companies to disregard licensing terms.
Helen Choi argues that academics have an ethical duty to support open knowledge communities like Wikipedia. Generative AI products divert traffic from Wikipedia, threatening its volunteer-driven model and long-term viability.