Wikipedia stops AI-generated summary features after community says it can harm trust: ‘This would do immediate and irreversible…'
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The experiment, which began earlier this month, aimed to show short, machine-generated summaries at the top of Wikipedia articles on mobile. However, it faced immediate and overwhelming backlash. The report quotes one editor who said, 'Just because Google has rolled out its AI summaries doesn't mean we need to one-up them… This would do immediate and irreversible harm to our readers and to our reputation as a decently trustworthy and serious source.'
Another simply wrote, 'Yuck.'
Wikipedia's Simple Article Summaries faces backlash
The summaries, created using the Aya model from Cohere, appeared at the top of articles for users who opted in via a browser extension. These summaries were hidden by default, marked with a yellow 'unverified' label, and had to be expanded to read. The feature was called 'Simple Article Summaries' and was designed to make dense Wikipedia content easier to understand.
But editors were quick to argue that this approach undermined the core values of Wikipedia.
One said, 'With Simple Article Summaries, you propose giving one singular editor with known reliability and NPOV issues a platform at the very top of any given article… I don't think I would feel comfortable contributing to an encyclopedia like this.'
Wikipedia responds to backlash
In response to the backlash, Wikimedia announced it would pause the experiment. A spokesperson explained that the trial was an opt-in test to help make Wikipedia more accessible, particularly for readers with different reading levels.
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'It was meant to gauge interest… and help us think about the right kind of community moderation systems to ensure humans remain central to deciding what information is shown,' the spokesperson said as quoted in the report.
The Foundation also acknowledged that the communication around the project could have been better. 'Reading through the comments, it's clear we could have done a better job introducing this idea,' a project manager said.
'We need to figure out how we can experiment in safe ways that are appropriate for readers and the Wikimedia community.'
While the AI summaries have been put on hold for now, Wikimedia says it remains interested in exploring AI tools — but with full involvement from editors. 'We do not have any plans for bringing a summary feature to the wikis without editor involvement,' the project manager added.
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