Correction (10/11/24): Lebleu reached out to clarify a few detailed regarding the motivations behing the user posting AI-generated materiel and the examples mentioned. These changes were applied...

Wikipedia has a new initiative called WikiProject AI Cleanup. It is a task force of volunteers currently combing through Wikipedia articles, editing or removing false information that appears to have been posted by people using generative AI.

Ilyas Lebleu, a founding member of the cleanup crew, told 404 Media that the crisis began when Wikipedia editors and users began seeing passages that were unmistakably written by a chatbot of some kind.

  • sbv@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    99·
    1 month ago

    As for why this is happening, the cleanup crew thinks there are three primary reasons.

    “[The] main reasons that motivate editors to add AI-generated content: self-promotion, deliberate hoaxing, and being misinformed into thinking that the generated content is accurate and constructive,”

    That last one. Ouch.