Wikipedia has paused its pilot initiative that used artificial intelligence to automatically generate summaries on articles after facing criticism from its volunteer editors, according to recent reports.
The pilot program, previously announced earlier this month, was accessible to users who opted in via Wikipedia’s browser extension. Under the experiment, AI-generated brief summaries appeared at the top of Wikipedia articles, each clearly labeled with a yellow indicator marking them as “unverified.” Users were required to click the summaries to view their content.
Almost immediately following its launch, Wikipedia’s editor community voiced strong opposition, expressing concerns that the use of AI-generated summaries could jeopardize the reliability and credibility of the site’s content. Editors particularly emphasized the risk of widespread inaccuracies arising from AI-generated text, frequently referred to as “hallucinations.” Such factual inaccuracies have plagued similar AI implementations by other publishers; for instance, some news organizations like Bloomberg encountered problems severe enough that they were compelled to issue corrections or substantially scale back their AI-based summary projects.
In response to these concerns, Wikimedia—the foundation responsible for Wikipedia—has halted the experimental summaries. However, the organization has indicated that it remains interested in exploring future applications of AI technology, especially in areas such as improving the platform’s accessibility.
