Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales has said the online encyclopedia does not trust artificial intelligence enough to allow it to play a direct role in editing articles on its platform.
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Wales stated this on Monday while speaking to AFP on the sidelines of a climate action week event in London.
According to him, although the problem of AI “hallucinations” has reduced with newer models, it remains a major concern for a platform built on accuracy, verification and community editing.
AI hallucination refers to a situation where artificial intelligence confidently presents false or fabricated information as fact.
“We would not let it edit directly because you can’t really trust it enough,” Wales said.
He, however, noted that AI agents could still be useful to Wikipedia by alerting its community of millions of volunteer editors to niche news developments that might otherwise be missed.
Wales’ comments come at a time when artificial intelligence platforms increasingly rely on Wikipedia’s content to answer users’ questions.
That dependence has reportedly contributed to a rise in visits to Wikipedia by AI bots, even as human traffic to the site has dropped by about eight per cent.
Wales, who sits on the board of trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, which operates Wikipedia, described the decline in human traffic as “meaningful” but “not a disaster” for the online encyclopedia.
Wikipedia, founded in 2001, remains one of the 10 most visited websites in the world and depends largely on donations from users. Its business model does not directly rely on web traffic.
Wales also urged AI companies to “pay their fair share,” saying the heavy use of Wikipedia by bots imposes real financial costs on the platform.
“Hammering us with millions of requests costs real money,” he said, referring to the cost of running servers.
According to him, Wikipedia has already been “very successful” in reaching agreements with some technology companies.
“We’re starting to block the ones who aren’t behaving themselves, but we’ll see how that goes,” Wales added.
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