Recently, the Wikipedia editing team approved a new policy to address the large number of low-quality entries generated by AI on the platform. According to this policy, Wikipedia administrators will have the authority to quickly delete these AI-generated articles under specific conditions. The measure aims to maintain the quality of Wikipedia's content and prevent the spread of false information.
Ilyas Lebleu, a founding member of WikiProject AI Cleanup, pointed out that while certain features can help identify AI content, such as specific wording and formatting, these features are not always clear-cut. He said that Wikipedia does not want to mistakenly delete entries based solely on the style of a text, as human authors can also produce poor-quality content. However, the speed at which AI generates content far exceeds that of humans, making low-quality AI-generated content a serious issue.
The new policy states that AI-generated entries meeting two main conditions can be quickly deleted. First, if the entry contains "user-facing communication content," such as obvious prompts generated by large language models, like "This is your Wikipedia entry..." or "As of my last training update...", these statements indicate that the submitter may not have carefully reviewed the article content. Second, if the references in the entry contain obvious errors, such as links that cannot be opened or are unrelated to the topic, this is a common mistake in AI-generated content.
Lebleu emphasized that the quick deletion is a "temporary solution" that helps deal with the most visible problems. However, he also said that the proliferation of AI content is an ongoing issue, and there are still many AI-generated contents that do not meet these two deletion criteria. Nevertheless, he believes that AI has the potential to become a beneficial tool and may have a positive impact on Wikipedia in the future.
Key Points:
✅ Wikipedia has implemented a new policy to strengthen regulation of AI-generated content, granting administrators the right to quickly delete entries.
✅ The conditions for quickly deleting entries include the presence of AI-generated communication content and obvious reference errors.
✅ Although the proliferation of AI content is an ongoing problem, AI may become a beneficial tool for Wikipedia in the future.