Wikipedia celebrated its 25th anniversary on Thursday by announcing partnerships with several major artificial intelligence companies, including Amazon, Meta Platforms, Perplexity, Microsoft, and France’s Mistral AI, reports AP.
The move reflects a growing trend as AI developers increasingly train models using publicly available online content, including Wikipedia’s vast repository. The site, one of the last bastions of the early internet, has faced questions over who should bear the cost of AI training on freely available information.
The Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that runs Wikipedia, first signed Google as a paying customer in 2022 and has since expanded agreements with smaller AI players such as Ecosia. The foundation said these new deals will allow AI companies to access Wikipedia content “at a volume and speed designed specifically for their needs,” without disclosing financial details.
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales welcomed AI training on the site, emphasizing the value of human-curated content. “I wouldn’t really want to use an AI that’s trained only on X, like a very angry AI,” he said, referring to Elon Musk’s social media platform. Wales said Wikipedia wants to collaborate with AI companies, not block them, while ensuring they pay a fair share for the resources used.
Wikimedia CEO Maryana Iskander highlighted the strain on Wikipedia’s infrastructure caused by bot traffic scraping content for AI. Maintaining servers costs money, and much of Wikipedia’s funding comes from individual donations, not AI companies. “They’re not donating to subsidize these huge AI companies,” Wales said.
The foundation sees AI as a tool to assist editors rather than replace them. Future applications could include updating dead links, improving search, and providing more interactive responses from articles.
Despite its popularity, Wikipedia faces criticism from political figures, especially on the U.S. right, who accuse it of bias. Musk’s AI-powered rival, Grokipedia, has drawn particular attention, but Wales dismissed it as a minor threat, noting that large language models often produce regurgitated or low-quality content.
Reflecting on Wikipedia’s early days, Wales said it was a period of excitement and collaboration, though not without challenges. “People were pretty toxic back then as well. We didn’t need algorithms to be mean to each other,” he said.
Wikipedia plans to continue working with AI companies while protecting its integrity and maintaining the spirit of freely accessible knowledge.
Bd-pratidin English/ Jisan
