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Wikipedia says traffic is falling due to AI search summaries and social video

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Re: Wikipedia says traffic is falling due to AI search summaries and social video

#201

Post by Amorymeltzer »

epolanski wrote: post #138
irjustin wrote: post #3

I'll go out on a limb and say we _need_ Wikipedia and it's okay that traffic falls. Physical print encyclopedias got replaced by Wikipedia, but AI isn't a replacement (can't ever see how either). While AI is a method of easier access for the end user, the purpose of Wikipedia stands on its own. I've always scoffed at the Wikimedia Foundation's warchest and continuously increasing annual spending. I say now is the tim…

Wikipedia is the best thing ever. Anyone in the world can write anything they want about any subject, so you know you are getting the best possible information.

"For those unaware, this is (exactly?) quoting Michael Scott from The Office." - Wayne Gretzky

Re: Wikipedia says traffic is falling due to AI search summaries and social video

#202

Post by Panzer04 »

Terr_ wrote: post #166
al_borland wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Become self sustaining through investments so it can live for 1000 years. I always wondered why more companies or organizations didn’t do this. Pile up money during the good years to allow themselves to not need continued outside income to keep going, so they can do what is right instead of compromising their vision for the sake of hitting quarterly earnings. That isn’t to say they can’t keep making money, but do i…

> Pile up money during the good years to allow themselves to not need continued outside income to keep going, so they can do what is right instead of compromising their vision for the sake of hitting quarterly earnings. Typically, individuals want to pile up money so that they don't need outside income to keep going, and the shareholders of a "quarterly earnings" company will squeeze the entity to get it for themselv…

Money locked up in companies is managed at the leisure of its management, regardless of how good that might be for anyone else (ie. the shareholding owners). Money sitting there doing nothing is a poor use of it, so most companies are encouraged to run with only enough working capital to keep operations going.

It sounds weird, but this is better for shareholders and the economy (and companies can raise capital as needed down the line) than having all companies hold 3x the cash on the balance sheet.

The argument would be different for a foundation by wikipedia, albeit you still have problems between what the wikipedia management might want (high wages, little accountability) and everyone else.

Re: Wikipedia says traffic is falling due to AI search summaries and social video

#203

Post by scuff3d »

mmooss wrote: post #96
scuff3d wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, and where are all those LLMs without the billions upon billions of lines of text written by humans? A not insignificant number coming from Wikipedia? Also, LLMs don't produce truth. They don't have a concept of it. Or lies for that matter. If you are using LLMs do study something you know nothing about the information provided by them is as good as useless if you don't verify it with external sources written b…

> where are all those LLMs without the billions upon billions of lines of text written by humans? A not insignificant number coming from Wikipedia? Where is Wikipedia without all the learning and information from other sources, many of which it put out of business? > Also, LLMs don't produce truth. They don't have a concept of it. Or lies for that matter. If you are using LLMs do study something you know nothing abou…

The comment about Wikipedia supposedly putting companies out of business is so goofy I'm not even gonna comment on it. I'm surprised you'd bother trying to make a point there.

The difference is humans have a concept of truth, humans have intent. A person, taking an aggregation of their research, expertise, and experience to produce an article is (presumably) trying to produce something factual. Other humans then come along, with similar intent, and verify it. Studies in the past have shown Wikipedia's accuracy rate is roughly on par with traditional encyclopedias, and more importantly sources are clearly documented. Making validation and further research fairly easy. And if something isn't sourced I know immediately it's more suspect.

LLMs have no concept of truth, they have no "intent". They just slap words down based on statistics. It is admittedly very impressive how good they are at doing that, but they don't produce truth in any meaningful way, it more a by product. On top of that all its sources get smashed together, making it much more difficult to verify the validity of any given claim. It's also unpredictable, so the exact same prompt could produce truth one time, and a hallucination another (a situation I have run into when it comes to engineering tasks). And worst of all. Not only will an LLM be wrong, but it will be confidently and persuasively wrong.

Re: Wikipedia says traffic is falling due to AI search summaries and social video

#204

Post by DyslexicAtheist »

epx wrote: post #170
supportengineer wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, any writes are reverted within seconds by the gatekeepers, but sure, ok.

I have donated to them in the last two decades, and stopped because of this. Won't feed those beasts

should give them another chance

Re: Wikipedia says traffic is falling due to AI search summaries and social video

#205

Post by consumer451 »

amiga386 wrote: post #197
Diederich wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of the dozens of contributions I've made over the decades, some recent, either zero or one of them have been reverted.

Were any on these topics? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Contentious_topics#L...

What percentage of Wikipedia does that cover?

The entire world's knowledge has some controversial topics? Oh my! Burn it! Burn it all!!

The librarians of Alexandria would have killed for Wikipedia. It's easily our greatest digital achievement.

This is a hill on which I would happily fight to my metaphorical death, here and now. If you disagree, let's discuss please.

Re: Wikipedia says traffic is falling due to AI search summaries and social video

#206

Post by nickff »

lottin wrote: post #191
nickff wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a company retains earnings, it has to pay taxes on them (as profits), but the money is still at risk (from a shareholder’s point of view) if something bad happens to the company (lawsuit or market problem). Shareholders usually want to receive whatever money the company has saved up, to safeguard it from being lost for no reason, and so that they (the shareholder) can put it to use elsewhere. This would change if…

Retained earnings are not taxed per se. A company pays taxes on profits. Whether the profits are distributed to shareholders or retained makes no difference whatsoever as far as taxes are concerned.

They are taxed; they are taxed because they are a subset of profits, which is a taxed category. They are not taxed more than other profits, but that doesn’t mean they’re ’not taxed’.

Re: Wikipedia says traffic is falling due to AI search summaries and social video

#207

Post by warkdarrior »

Panzer04 wrote: post #202
Terr_ wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pile up money during the good years to allow themselves to not need continued outside income to keep going, so they can do what is right instead of compromising their vision for the sake of hitting quarterly earnings. Typically, individuals want to pile up money so that they don't need outside income to keep going, and the shareholders of a "quarterly earnings" company will squeeze the entity to get it for themselv…

Money locked up in companies is managed at the leisure of its management, regardless of how good that might be for anyone else (ie. the shareholding owners). Money sitting there doing nothing is a poor use of it, so most companies are encouraged to run with only enough working capital to keep operations going. It sounds weird, but this is better for shareholders and the economy (and companies can raise capital as nee…

> Money locked up in companies is managed at the leisure of its management, regardless of how good that might be for [...] the shareholding owners

But the management is aware that the shareholders can apply (direct or indirect) pressure for the money to be used in certain ways. Ultimately the shareholder can sue the management if they think the money is misused.

Re: Wikipedia says traffic is falling due to AI search summaries and social video

#208

Post by thehappypm »

intended wrote: post #65
crmd wrote: post #2

As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that is not dependent on web traffic for revenue, is a decline in traffic necessarily bad? I always assumed the need for metastatic growth was limited to VC-backed and ad-revenue dependent companies.

The warning sign is not traffic for ads, although this will result in a drop in donations eventually. It means that now, people are paying for their AI subscriptions, while they don’t see Wikipedia at all. The primary source is being intermediated - which is the opposite of what the net was supposed to achieve. This is the piracy argument, except this time its not little old ladies doing it, but massive for profit fi…

Wikipedia was never a primary source to begin with

Re: Wikipedia says traffic is falling due to AI search summaries and social video

#209

Post by warkdarrior »

ta1243 wrote: post #114
nickff wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a company retains earnings, it has to pay taxes on them (as profits), but the money is still at risk (from a shareholder’s point of view) if something bad happens to the company (lawsuit or market problem). Shareholders usually want to receive whatever money the company has saved up, to safeguard it from being lost for no reason, and so that they (the shareholder) can put it to use elsewhere. This would change if…

> This would change if the government stopped taxing retained earnings. No it wouldn't, because > the money is still at risk (from a shareholder’s point of view) if something bad happens to the company (lawsuit or market problem).

It would definitely change, because a shareholder could then take a loan against the non-taxed retained earnings they are owed. So then it comes down to whether the tax is higher or lower than the loan interest (adjust for the risk you mentioned).

Re: Wikipedia says traffic is falling due to AI search summaries and social video

#210

Post by warkdarrior »

redwall_hp wrote: post #66
al_borland wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.” I recently visited Scotland and on a visit to a distillery they mentioned they bought land in the US to grow trees that will make their barrels one day. The trees take over 100 years to grow (if I remember correctly). How is it we can invest ~200 years into a glass of scotch, yet we aren’t willing to take the same care and…

Craftsmen care about what they make, pursuing excellence even if it may take generations. Businessmen care about robbing you now in the most efficient way.

Efficient robbery is a craft too, just not one you (or most people) appreciate.
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