English Wikipedia Bans AI for Content Creation, With Exceptions

Wikipedia Restricts the Use of AI on Its Platform

The English version of Wikipedia, which has the most extensive collection of articles, has recently adopted a strict measure banning the publication of content generated by artificial intelligence. This decision, highlighted by The Verge, reflects the encyclopedia's desire to strengthen its rules in the face of the proliferation of AI-generated content.

Wikipedia officials justified this ban by stating that large language models, such as those developed by ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, or DeepSeek, often produce texts that do not comply with the encyclopedia's policies. One major issue identified is that these models can go beyond what is requested, altering the meaning of the text in a way that is no longer supported by the cited sources. However, editors retain the ability to use AI for making minor corrections to their existing articles, but the addition of new content by these models is prohibited. Even for these limited uses, Wikipedia encourages cautious application.

Exceptions for Translation and Corrections

Despite this general ban, the English version of Wikipedia allows the use of large language models to translate articles from other language versions into English. However, this use is governed by specific rules already in place.

To impose sanctions against editors, Wikipedia will rely on solid evidence rather than stylistic or linguistic clues, acknowledging that some human editors may have a style similar to that of AI models.

It is crucial to note that the rules regarding the use of AI vary by language. For the English version, the use of language models like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude is now heavily restricted, except for basic corrections and the translation of content.