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[–] 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.

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  • [–] 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

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  • [–] 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.

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  • [–] 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.

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  • [–] 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.

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  • [–] 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.

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  • [–] 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.

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  • [–] 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.

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  • [–] 16 points 6 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 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.

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    [–] 89 points 6 months ago* (5 children)

    An extremely measured and level-headed response. Kudos to Wikipedia for maintaining high standards.

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  • [–] 114 points 6 months ago (4 children)

    It has to be said, they originally changed their stance due to the considerable editor pushback when they tried to introduce LLM summaries on the top of articles. So kudos to the editor community's resistance! ✊

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  • [–] 73 points 6 months ago (16 children)

    First, editors can use LLMs to suggest refinements to their own writing, as long as the edits are checked for accuracy.

    translation assistance

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  • [–] 16 points 6 months ago* (14 children)

    The former I'm still looking sideways at.

    The latter, probably the only truly benevolent use of LLMs. And even then, you'll get plenty of grumbling.

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  • [–] 45 points 6 months ago* (2 children)

    I know at least one writing major who won an award from his volunteer work at Wikipedia. He did it as a hobby. They don't really need AI, they need people like him.

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    [–] 25 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    Banned the people who openly admit it, anyway.

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  • [–] 18 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    There should be only one exception: In case someone needs an example of an AI-generated text.

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  • [–] 17 points 6 months ago

    W Wikipedia,would be better to remove the exceptions but its fine tbh.

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  • [–] 8 points 6 months ago (11 children)

    Why do they need AI at all? Wikipedia had existed long before it and was doing fine.

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  • [–] 30 points 6 months ago

    You could make that argument about any tool Wikipedia editors use. Why should they need spellcheck? They were typing words just fine before.

    ...except it just makes it easier to spot errors or get little suggestions on how you could reword something, and thus makes the whole process a little smoother.

    It's not strictly necessary, but this could definitely be helpful to people for translation and proofreading. Doesn't have to be something people are wholly reliant on to still be beneficial to their ability to edit Wikipedia.

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  • [–] 11 points 6 months ago (9 children)

    Why should we use (insert tool) when we did just fine before?

    Because when used correctly it can be great for helping you be more productive, and find errors/make improvements. The two exceptions are for grammar which AI does a surprisingly good job with. Would you have gotten mad if they used Grammarly >5 years ago? Having it rewrite an entire article is gonna be a bad idea, but asking it to rephrase a sentence, or check your phrasing for potential issues is a much safer thing. Not everyone who speaks Spanish uses it the same way. Some words are innocuous in some regions, but offensive in others.

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  • [–] 7 points 6 months ago (7 children)

    But how do they know it is ai written?

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  • [–] 6 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    So in other words, when used responsibly as a tool with limitations, AI has it's uses? Though very environmentally unfriendly uses?

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    [–] 6 points 6 months ago* (2 children)

    I hoped the exceptions would be like "Quoted example text of LLM output, when it's clearly labeled and styled separately from the article text."

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  • [–] 6 points 6 months ago

    Wikipedia has banned AI-generated text,

    Smiling Gus

    ... with two exceptions

    Glaring Gus

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