you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 414 points 6 months ago (36 children)

Saved you a click:

After much debate, the new policy is in effect: Wikipedia authors are not allowed to use LLMs for generating or rewriting article content. There are two primary exceptions, though.

First, editors can use LLMs to suggest refinements to their own writing, as long as the edits are checked for accuracy. In other words, it’s being treated like any other grammar checker or writing assistance tool. The policy says, “ LLMs can go beyond what you ask of them and change the meaning of the text such that it is not supported by the sources cited.”

The second exemption for LLMs is with translation assistance. Editors can use AI tools for the first pass at translating text, but they still need to be fluent enough in both languages to catch errors. As with regular writing refinements, anyone using LLMs also has to check that incorrect information hasn’t been injected.

  • source
  • hideshow 36 child comments
  • [–] 261 points 6 months ago (21 children)

    AIbros: we're creating God!!!

    AI users: it can do translation & reformating pretty well but you got to check it's not chatting shit

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 21 child comments
  • [–] 102 points 6 months ago (14 children)

    The takeaway from all LLM-based AI is the user needs to be smart enough to do whatever they're asking anyway. All output needs to be verified before being used or relied upon.

    The "AI" is just streamlining the process to save time.

    Relying on it otherwise is stupid and just proves instantly that you are incompetent.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 14 child comments
  • [–] 12 points 6 months ago (11 children)

    the user needs to be smart enough to do whatever they're asking anyway

    I'm gonna say that's ideal but not quite necessary. What's needed is that the user is capable of properly verifying the output. Which anyone who could do it themselves definitely can, but it can be done more broadly. It's an easier skill to verify a result than it is to obtain that result. Think: how film critics don't necessarily need to be filmmakers, or the P=NP question in computer science.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 11 child comments
  • [–] 16 points 6 months ago (9 children)

    But if the output has issues, what're you going to do, prompt it again? If you are only able to verify but not do the task, you cannot correct the AI's mistakes yourself.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 9 child comments
  • [–] 9 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    At the risk of sounding like an overly obsequious AI… You know what, you're completely right. I'm honestly not sure what use case I was imagining when I wrote that last comment.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 6 points 6 months ago

    Making text flow naturally, grouping and ordeeing information, good writing.

    You can verify two textst have the same facts and information, yet one reads way better than the other. But writing a text that reads well is quite hard.

  • source
  • parent
  • You were thinking logically about a normal production chain. In that case, QA or whoever says "This is wrong, rework it and correct the issue" and that's that. With AI, it does the whole thing over again and may or may not come back with the same issue or an entirely new one.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (2 children)

    If you're unable to brute-force verification (research, testing, consulting the ancient texts), there's where you stop what you're doing, and take a breath. Then, consult an expert. Just like the film critic analogy, it's easier to verify than to create, so you're saving the expert time and effort while learning about something that you were obviously already passionate enough about to have started this endeavor.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    As someone who codes, it's not always easier to verify than to create.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago

    As someone who codes, I specifically didn't say "always" because of course it's not always true. Especially in the cases of "garbage in, garbage out."

    But there's still an argument to be made for mental load and context, for which I'd argue that planning solutions and then writing the code generally is more taxing than someone handing you suggested solutions with semi-complete code or pseudo-code, and then identifying road blocks.

    On the other hand, if someone you trust unexpectedly hands you hallucinated garbage, then you're likely to spin your wheels trying to identify what they did.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago

    In Wikipedias case, you just fail to make an edit/new post. So you can verify if Ai can make a usable post up to standard with people who can verify but not make, hopefully saving enough time and bulk to help that group learn to make properly, as well as leave the ones Ai will fuck up to people who can do it right.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago

    This is where domain expertise would come in, no? It's speeding up the work but it usually outputs generic content, and whatever else it injects while hallucinating. Therefore the validation part holds up I'd say.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago

    This is absolutely the case, and honestly, at least for now how it needs to be across the board.

    Noone should be using AI to do things you're incapable of doing (or undoing).

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago

    Relying on it otherwise is stupid and just proves instantly that you are incompetent.

    Relying on it in any circumstances (though medical stuff is understandable if you're simply too poor or don't have access) while it is exhausting water supplies and polluting the planet is stupid and instantly proves that you are stupid and inconsiderate.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 10 points 6 months ago (4 children)

    Fucking hate those anti human filth pushing slop into everything. I want to take one apart with power tools.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 16 points 6 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 5 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    Damn that movie was funny. I need to rewatch it.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 5 points 6 months ago

    I don't think AI users would say it does reformatting either (if they're honest): If you tell a chatbot to reformat text without changing it, it will change the text, because it does not understand the concept of not changing text. It should only take one time for someone to get burned for them to learn that lesson.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (5 children)

    Wikipedia probably wants to sell access to LLMs to train. It’s only valuable if Wikipedia remains a high-quality, slop-free source.

    I think even AI zealots think there should be silos of content to train from that are fully human generated. Training slop on slop makes the slop even worse.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • [–] 18 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    Sell licenses of what? It's already all in the creative commons iirc.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    The content is CC licensed, but they are trying to block AI scraping because it overloads their servers. They have a paid API that uses a lot less compute for both Wikipedia and the AI, as well as being a revenue source for Wikipedia.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 0 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    Seems like there should be a third exception. For those occasions where the article is about LLM generated text. They should be able to quote it when it's appropriate for an article.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 6 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    That is a reasonable exception to no-AI policies in research papers and newspaper articles, but not for Wikipedia. As a tertiary source, Wikipedia has a strict "no original research" policy. Using AI to provide examples of AI output would be original research, and should not be done.

    Quoting AI output shared in primary and secondary sources should be allowed for that reason, though.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago

    Eh, that's not quite original research. There are plenty of other examples of images and sound files created for Wikipedia. A representative example isn't research, it's just indicating what something is.

    The Wikipedia article on AI slop and generative AI has a few instances of content that's representative to illustrate a sourced statement, as opposed to being evidence or something.

    It's similar to the various charts and animations.

  • source
  • parent