Mastodawn

Talked to Wikipedians about AI all day. A thing that came through loud and clear: editors are experiencing AI as an outright high-volume assault. That is related to, but much more intense than, “I tried AI in 2024 and it sucks”. People building AI tools for wikipedians have to grapple with that.

Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝2d ago

Why would anyone want to build an AI tool for wikipedians? Unless it's a tool that helps to block AI

Kim Crawley 😷 (she/her)1d ago

@richpuchalsky @luis_in_brief
A-fucking-men.

verified_transgender

@richpuchalsky @luis_in_brief but LLMs can make up new facts to put on Wikipedia so much faster than humans! /sarcasm

@richpuchalsky @luis_in_brief

lol

I can't imagine being so pilled that you think LLMs can do useful things for anyone.

Bryan Davis 2d ago

@luis_in_brief Or people could stop building generative AI tools. And stop calling things that are not generative AI “AI”.

Sara From Gaza 🍉🇵🇸2d ago

@luis_in_brief It makes sense from a moderation perspective. Even a small percentage of bad AI output becomes a huge workload when the scale is massive.

GeePawHill 1d ago

@luis_in_brief What they really need to grapple with is their morality.

Kim Crawley 😷 (she/her)1d ago

https://zeroes.ca/@kimcrawley/116390631439352522

@luis_in_brief checks Wikipedia

> Huh I don't remember the early 21st century composer Jonas Čeika producing a fart concerto?

Blackthorn 1d ago

@az @luis_in_brief I lost it at "bedroom/DYI texture"

David Gerard 1d ago

@luis_in_brief they are not building them "for" the Wikipedians, but to evangelise genAI and as resume fodder

David Gerard 1d ago

@luis_in_brief the recent WMF efforts strike me as extremely the latter

Rycochet 1d ago

@davidgerard @luis_in_brief Remember when crypto bros tried to get Wikipedia and other projects to accept crypto donations, and whenever someone caved, they'd be cited as a use case for Crypto and a sign they're doing good in the world... Only the donations never come and the whole thing is dropped after wasting time and effort that could have gone to anything else.

It's that, it's the same types of people using the one respected institution the internet has left to try and gain credibility for a thing that is actively detrimental to their work, again.

@luis_in_brief So don't build AI tools for them then.

They've clearly, in no uncertian terms, expressed that they do not want AI going anywhere near wikipedia. To keep pushing it on them seems incredibly disrespectful.

Passenger 1d ago

@ClaireH @luis_in_brief

Pushing things on people they don't want, in an actively disrespectful way, is basically the only move that tech-hype guys have.