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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

#61

Post by scuff3d »

mmooss wrote: post #54
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…

Many said (some still say) that Wikipedia is not a replacement for traditional encyclopedias with articles written by domain experts, such as Britannica. Many more scoffed at that, saying those people were just stuck in their old ways and unable to adjust to the obviously superior new thing. Is that you? AI applications are different than Wikipedia and are better in some ways: Coverage is much greater - you can get a…

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 by a person. Wikipedia isn't perfect, nothing is, but I trust their model a shitload more then an LLM.

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

#62

Post by intended »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #9
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…

>I've always scoffed at the Wikimedia Foundation's warchest and continuously increasing annual spending. what are they increasing spending on? Are they still trying to branch out to other initiatives? I understand, even with static pages, that hosting one of the largest websites in the world won't be cheap, but it can't be rising that much, right?

The production of factually accurate content is a pretty expensive job.

We who were born before this era really took off, are spoiled by the journalism standards and information purity levels of the past, especially post the fall of the USSR.

Wikipedia is impressive on what it manages to coordinate on a daily basis, especially given only 644 FT staff.

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

#63

Post by intended »

I’m a pro-market solution person, but markets are a tool.

This is the kind of capitalistic behavior that is repugnant to our idea of how things should work.

This is not what the commons is for - taking the work of creators, repackaging it, and using platform capability to re-sell it.

At this point, I am coming around to the argument that governments should make their own local/national AI.

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

#64

Post by nickff »

al_borland wrote: post #48
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…

> 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…

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 the government stopped taxing retained earnings.

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

#65

Post by intended »

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 firms.

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

#66

Post by redwall_hp »

al_borland wrote: post #59
skeeter2020 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes a pretty altruistic leadership team to plan for 1000 years; even the multi-billionaire tech bros only plan to live for ~200 or so.

“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.

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

#67

Post by rkomorn »

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…

Wait, when were little old ladies the perpetrators of piracy?

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

#68

Post by sixtyj »

consumer451 wrote: post #60
mmooss wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many said (some still say) that Wikipedia is not a replacement for traditional encyclopedias with articles written by domain experts, such as Britannica. Many more scoffed at that, saying those people were just stuck in their old ways and unable to adjust to the obviously superior new thing. Is that you? AI applications are different than Wikipedia and are better in some ways: Coverage is much greater - you can get a…

> post-truth era. I know it’s completely normalized and the official name, but this has to be the most dangerous euphemism of our time. It’s the era of lies.

You are absolutely right.

But “era of lies” doesn’t sound nice because nobody wants to be a liar… so “post-truth” sounds better: “I'm telling the truth. Almost. But I'm not lying.”

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

#69

Post by consumer451 »

sixtyj wrote: post #68
consumer451 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> post-truth era. I know it’s completely normalized and the official name, but this has to be the most dangerous euphemism of our time. It’s the era of lies.

You are absolutely right. But “era of lies” doesn’t sound nice because nobody wants to be a liar… so “post-truth” sounds better: “I'm telling the truth. Almost. But I'm not lying.”

The inevitable AI investment bubble popping is going to be a big deal, but I believe that the larger bubble of political lies popping is much more interesting to think about.

What is that going to look like? How does one hedge against that eventuality?

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

#70

Post by somenameforme »

likium wrote: post #49
somenameforme wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most/all LLMs have already been able to cite sources for quite some time now.

Citing is not referencing links, it's finding primary sources and fact-checking. Kurzgesagt[1], an informational YouTube channel, has had issues with LLMs citing LLM generated content. [1]: https://youtube.com/watch?v=_zfN9wnPvU0&t=175

LLMs aren't arbiters of truth - they're just natural language search engines. In a way it's quite similar to Wikipedia. Something being on Wikipedia doesn't mean that it's true, but rather it means that a "reliable source", which are not infrequently less than reliable, said so. And even that often doesn't hold as there's another layer of indirection where it's an editor saying this is what a source said, which is again not infrequently not exactly accurate. And then there's 'citogenesis' [1] where imaginary facts can be circularly whisked into existence.

This is why Wikipedia is not a source, but can provide links to sources (which then, in turn, often send you down a rabbit hole trying to find their sources), and it's then up to you to determine the value and accuracy of those sources. For instance I enjoy researching historic economic issues and you'll often find there's like 5 layers of indirection before you can finally get to a first party source, and at each step along the road it's like a game of telephone of being played. It's the exact same with LLMs.

[1] - https://xkcd.com/978/

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