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Generative AI and Wikipedia editing: What we learned in 2025

wikiedu.org

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Re: Generative AI and Wikipedia editing: What we learned in 2025

#51

Post by DrewADesign »

nullsanity wrote: post #47
DrewADesign wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t see why people keep blaming cars for road safety problems; people got into buggy crashes for centuries before automobiles even existed

Because a difference in scale can become a difference in category. A handful of buggy crashes can be reduced to operator error, but as the car becomes widely adopted and analysis matures, it becomes clear that the fundamental design of the machine and its available use cases has fundamental flaws that cause a higher rate of operator error than desired. Therefore, cars are redesigned to be safer, laws and regulations…

Is the sarcasm really that opaque? Who would unironically equate buggy accidents and automobile accidents?

Re: Generative AI and Wikipedia editing: What we learned in 2025

#53

Post by theendisney »

What would be a truly epic application would be their own chat bot to ask about applying edit guidelines. After reading almost all of the guidelines the talkpage debates, even amoung experienced edditors, looked waaaay off. The pattern of revert first make up excuses later seems the worse newbie deterrent possible. This while it should be fine to make mistakes. Many such excuses would get debunked by a bot imediately. It simply wont do any favors. If established editors dont like it they can edit the guidelines.

Re: Generative AI and Wikipedia editing: What we learned in 2025

#54

Post by troyvit »

abacadaba wrote: post #31
mmooss wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A blanket dimsissal is a simple way to avoid dealing with complexity, here both in understanding the problem and forming solutions. Obviously not all newspapers are propaganda and at the same time not all can be trusted; not everything in the same newspaper or any other news source is of the same accuracy; nothing is completely trustworthy or completely untrustworthy. I think accepting that gets us to the starting li…

> Obviously not all newspapers are propaganda citation needed

See you should work for a newspaper. You have the gumption.

Re: Generative AI and Wikipedia editing: What we learned in 2025

#55

Post by obidee2 »

DrewADesign wrote: post #51
nullsanity wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because a difference in scale can become a difference in category. A handful of buggy crashes can be reduced to operator error, but as the car becomes widely adopted and analysis matures, it becomes clear that the fundamental design of the machine and its available use cases has fundamental flaws that cause a higher rate of operator error than desired. Therefore, cars are redesigned to be safer, laws and regulations…

Is the sarcasm really that opaque? Who would unironically equate buggy accidents and automobile accidents?

I’d like to introduce you to the internet.

There’s a reason /s was a big thing, one persons obvious sarcasm is (almost tautologically) another persons true statement of opinion.

Re: Generative AI and Wikipedia editing: What we learned in 2025

#56

Post by fernly »

Set aside the effect within Wikipedia and consider the larger picture, millions of people generating text with LLMs and at least some of that text being accepted as correct by millions of readers.

The WikiEdu article clearly demonstrates what everyone should have known already: an LLM has no commitment to the truth. An LLM's only commitment is to correct syntax.

Re: Generative AI and Wikipedia editing: What we learned in 2025

#57

Post by thorum »

I’m honestly surprised LLMs are still screwing up citations. It does not feel like a harder task than building software or generating novel math proofs. In both those cases, of course, there is a verifier, but self-verification with “Does this text support this claim?” seems like it ought to be within the capabilities of a good reasoning model.

But as I understand the situation, even the major Deep Research systems still have this issue.

Re: Generative AI and Wikipedia editing: What we learned in 2025

#58

Post by 6510 »

gonzobonzo wrote: post #29
crazygringo wrote: post #12

> That means the article contained a plausible-sounding sentence, cited to a real, relevant-sounding source. But when you read the source it’s cited to, the information on Wikipedia does not exist in that specific source. When a claim fails verification, it’s impossible to tell whether the information is true or not. This has been a rampant problem on Wikipedia always. I can't seem to find any indicator that this has…

The problems I've run into is both people giving fake citations (the citations don't actually justify the claim that's being made in the article), and people giving real citations, but if you dig into the source you realize it's coming from a crank. It's a big blind spot among the editors as well. When this problem was brought up here in the past, with people saying that claims on Wikipedia shouldn't be believed unle…

> but if you dig into the source you realize it's coming from a crank.

It is a dark sunday afternoon, Bob Park is sitting on his sofa as usual, drunk as usual, suddenly the TV reveals to him there to be something called the Paranormal (Twilight Zone music) ..instantly Bob knows there are no such things and adds a note to the incomprehensible mess of notes that one day will become his book. He downs one more Budweiser. In the distance lightning strikes a tree, Bob shouts You don't scare me! and shakes his fist. After a few more beers a miracle of inspiration descends and as if channeling, in the time span of 10 minutes he writes notes about Cold Fusion, Alternative Medicine, Faith Healing, Telepathy, Homeopathy, Parapsychology, Zener cards, the tooth fairy and father xmas. With much confidence he writes that non of them are real. It's been a really productive afternoon. It reminds him of times long gone back when he actually published many serious papers. He counts the remaining beers in his cooler and says to himself, in the next book I will need to take on god himself. The world needs to know, god is not real. I too will be the authority on that subject.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:WhatLinks...

Re: Generative AI and Wikipedia editing: What we learned in 2025

#59

Post by tovej »

wry_durian wrote: post #13

Note that this article is only about edits made through the Wiki Edu program, which partners with universities and academics to have students edit Wikipedia on course-related topics. It's not about Wikipedia writ large!

I've found Wiki Edu -edited pages with pages of creative writing exercises. When I have read their sources they were clumsily paraphrasing and misunderstanding the source.

LLMs definitely fit the use-case of Wiki Edu students, who are just looking to pass a grade, not to look into a topic because of their interest.

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