- Wikipedia has temporarily suspended its AI-generated summary pilot after receiving strong criticism from its editors.
- Editors raised concerns about the accuracy of the summaries, warning that AI-generated content could harm the platform’s credibility.
- Despite the pause, Wikipedia remains open to using AI in the future, especially to improve accessibility and user experience.
Wikipedia has temporarily suspended a pilot program that introduced AI-generated summaries at the top of its articles, following pushback from its community of editors.
Earlier this month, the platform began testing the feature with users who had installed the Wikipedia browser extension and opted into the experiment. The summaries, generated by artificial intelligence, appeared prominently at the top of each article and were marked with a yellow “unverified” label. To view the full summary, users had to click to expand it.
However, the rollout was met with swift criticism. Editors expressed serious concerns about the accuracy of the summaries, warning that they could harm Wikipedia’s reputation for reliability. One of the main issues cited was the tendency of AI tools to produce factual errors—commonly referred to as “hallucinations.” Similar problems have plagued other media organizations, such as Bloomberg, which have had to correct or scale back their own AI-driven content experiments.
Despite pausing the initiative, Wikipedia has made it clear that it remains open to exploring AI-generated content in the future, particularly for applications aimed at improving accessibility and user experience.
العربية (Arabic) To read the article in Arabic, click here
