Hope it actually goes back into keeping the site alive and paying the humans who maintain it, not just turning into another “free labour pipeline” for trillion dollar companies.
I’m sure that will do loads for its trustworthiness…
bloodmark20 on
Does that take away wikipedia’s supposed independence in any way? I really wish these tech overlords will stop destroying good things for once.
AnalysisFlimsy4661 on
I can’t remember Wikipedia ever paying anyone money in its entire history. Wikipedia only asks for money. And yet it is full of information thanks to the free labor of people. Hypocrisy.
Puripuri_Purizona on
And they will still beg for more.
mjconver on
I trust Wikipedia, not any AI
Ophiochos on
Well if they had more donations they wouldn’t need it, and AI is scrapping it at random anyway so this lets them organise the scraping so it doesn’t suddenly randomly tax servers. It’s not a mad decision. (Yes I do donate by standing order).
Emergency_Link7328 on
I’m sure the editors will also be handsomely paid.
LostOne514 on
Honestly, makes sense. Won’t have to rely as much on donations and like they stated allows for them to improve the systems in order to handle the new AI loads. I don’t see any issues with this.
JimyLamisters on
If only I had given them that $2
Nervous-Coffee-1117 on
So much for Wikipedia. And they’ll still ask for donations too.
EchoRex on
So get paid for their content or have the AI continue to use it for free?
The AI companies don’t have any control over them and they are continuing to provide content to the public for free, including ad free, still.
Meat-Dimension on
It’s good they’re getting paid for what AI companies were already doing for free (ripping their content off)
Th35tr1k3r on
Can someone tell me what’s the problem?
They found a way how ai companies actually pay Wikipedia for access to its huge data, which they scraped for free from it before.
They do now get better access to the data but have to pay for it.
MasemJ on
All this deal does is allow these companies to pay to get higher speed access to the content on WP. They already could do this without any license because WP being open source, but not at the speeds they wanted.
This doesn’t let these companies inject AI into the content of WP, that’s still human controlled and one of those things WP editors will not allow.
Rezkel on
I feel like this is the same level of panic every time Blender gets a corpo backer/deal. AI already scrapes wikipedia a ton, so at least some money is being made from it now. I would rather the google AI show me wikipedia summaries then basing the answer off dunning kruger effect reddit posts
jerrrrremy on
This is a pretty good test of who on reddit actually reads the articles.
DemonOfTheNorthwoods on
The question now is whether Wikipedia will be forced to tow the line of what their corporate backers want them to say? Will they edit their articles in order to placate these A.I. companies or their CEOs?
LurkingTamilian on
From the article:
>Foundation executives say this strategy is a response to soaring technical demands on the network. Automated scraping – often disguised as regular traffic – has intensified as AI developers harvest online text for model training. As a result, the load on Wikipedia’s servers has grown significantly, even as human readership has fallen by roughly eight percent over the past year.
lostmylogininfo on
If this is just API access it’s a huge win for Wikipedia
BlackberryPi7 on
As soon as the “Gulf of Mexico” page changes to “Gulf of America” that’s the red flag that Wikipedia is compromised.
DOGEFLIEP on
They asked money from us for 20 years. What did you expect ?
Bruntti on
As they were already scraping wikipedia, good.
AnalysisFlimsy4661 on
Defenders of Wikipedia, you are hypocrites. Or just stupid?! For decades, Wikipedia has been filling itself with information from the free internet, from other websites and pirated textbooks, from libraries around the world. Now this gang is selling the free information they have collected, selling other people’s work. Why doesn’t Wikipedia pay authors and editors? Why doesn’t Wikipedia share its revenue with those who edited the articles? Why doesn’t Wikipedia pay royalties to libraries and book publishers? It’s like a food bank selling food for money. Go fuck yourselves if you don’t understand how your own fucking capitalism works.
CoinAndCraft_ on
Good thing so many data holders have already backed that up.
lemaymayguy on
Wikipedia and internet archive has been targeted more and more by private capital with bad intentions
TomTomXD1234 on
Let the headline readers be outraged lol
anarkyinducer on
And that revenue will be shared with the actual wiki content creators and editors? Right?
Right?
tabrizzi on
That’s good.
Spotter01 on
Soooooo No more Pandhadling then right? RIGHT? **RIGHT?**
Melt_More_Ice on
Make sure you vote to continue funding public libraries when it’s on the ballot in your city or town. The rewrite of truth is happening on the dead internet. Analog will return once people realize tech is just a giant trap for control
infinitemagicthings on
Well if it means more money flowing that way then good I have been donating for about a year now
Sea-Shoe3287 on
Good data is hard to find. No, really…
MisunderstoodPenguin on
Good. They deserve it. It’s basically the best place to data scrape since it has source links to all of the articles related to the page topic.
Jamir33 on
Honestly, this feels overdue.
Wikipedia has been a foundational data source for AI, so compensating them helps keep the project sustainable without compromising neutrality — as long as transparency stays intact.
siakshit on
Wikipedia have alot of unverified data now they gonna feed that to AIs
No_Issue2334 on
Am I supposed to think this is a bad thing? This is great
Isn’t the big complaint about AI is that it’s plagiarism? Not plagiarism if you pay for the rights to train on it
greaterwhiterwookiee on
Guess my $5 a month donations can stop now
prettybluefoxes on
Yeah it was always a trash heap of misinformation.
Now it’s going to be a manicured trash heap of misinformation.
That user is basically drawing a comparison using Stackoverflow, saying it is the same process, in how it first was used a source for AI companies for training and then ended up getting completely replaced by it.
That user proposed, if it follows the same path, Wikipedia is doomed as well.
Do you agree/disagree ?
PhiloLibrarian on
Hahaha! I knew what the Internet was gonna be totally crap… it only took 25 years.
Back to print?
I really can’t stand tech billionaires controlling my information.
There’s a long overdue protocol to build here. Scraping is a dumb way to get data and they’re not paying for it. The industry needs to agree on standardized APIs for AI to consume data from content providers and provide compensation.
husky_whisperer on
Does this mean they’ll stop asking me for $2.17?
Cold_Neighborhood928 on
Now they absolutely have no reason to beg for donations
48 Comments
Hope it actually goes back into keeping the site alive and paying the humans who maintain it, not just turning into another “free labour pipeline” for trillion dollar companies.
Current fundraising methods seem about as useful as a Touch the Truck competition: https://youtu.be/9c3PbPvI9pc
Meta and Microsoft are shit companies.
I’m sure that will do loads for its trustworthiness…
Does that take away wikipedia’s supposed independence in any way? I really wish these tech overlords will stop destroying good things for once.
I can’t remember Wikipedia ever paying anyone money in its entire history. Wikipedia only asks for money. And yet it is full of information thanks to the free labor of people. Hypocrisy.
And they will still beg for more.
I trust Wikipedia, not any AI
Well if they had more donations they wouldn’t need it, and AI is scrapping it at random anyway so this lets them organise the scraping so it doesn’t suddenly randomly tax servers. It’s not a mad decision. (Yes I do donate by standing order).
I’m sure the editors will also be handsomely paid.
Honestly, makes sense. Won’t have to rely as much on donations and like they stated allows for them to improve the systems in order to handle the new AI loads. I don’t see any issues with this.
If only I had given them that $2
So much for Wikipedia. And they’ll still ask for donations too.
So get paid for their content or have the AI continue to use it for free?
The AI companies don’t have any control over them and they are continuing to provide content to the public for free, including ad free, still.
It’s good they’re getting paid for what AI companies were already doing for free (ripping their content off)
Can someone tell me what’s the problem?
They found a way how ai companies actually pay Wikipedia for access to its huge data, which they scraped for free from it before.
They do now get better access to the data but have to pay for it.
All this deal does is allow these companies to pay to get higher speed access to the content on WP. They already could do this without any license because WP being open source, but not at the speeds they wanted.
This doesn’t let these companies inject AI into the content of WP, that’s still human controlled and one of those things WP editors will not allow.
I feel like this is the same level of panic every time Blender gets a corpo backer/deal. AI already scrapes wikipedia a ton, so at least some money is being made from it now. I would rather the google AI show me wikipedia summaries then basing the answer off dunning kruger effect reddit posts
This is a pretty good test of who on reddit actually reads the articles.
The question now is whether Wikipedia will be forced to tow the line of what their corporate backers want them to say? Will they edit their articles in order to placate these A.I. companies or their CEOs?
From the article:
>Foundation executives say this strategy is a response to soaring technical demands on the network. Automated scraping – often disguised as regular traffic – has intensified as AI developers harvest online text for model training. As a result, the load on Wikipedia’s servers has grown significantly, even as human readership has fallen by roughly eight percent over the past year.
If this is just API access it’s a huge win for Wikipedia
As soon as the “Gulf of Mexico” page changes to “Gulf of America” that’s the red flag that Wikipedia is compromised.
They asked money from us for 20 years. What did you expect ?
As they were already scraping wikipedia, good.
Defenders of Wikipedia, you are hypocrites. Or just stupid?! For decades, Wikipedia has been filling itself with information from the free internet, from other websites and pirated textbooks, from libraries around the world. Now this gang is selling the free information they have collected, selling other people’s work. Why doesn’t Wikipedia pay authors and editors? Why doesn’t Wikipedia share its revenue with those who edited the articles? Why doesn’t Wikipedia pay royalties to libraries and book publishers? It’s like a food bank selling food for money. Go fuck yourselves if you don’t understand how your own fucking capitalism works.
Good thing so many data holders have already backed that up.
Wikipedia and internet archive has been targeted more and more by private capital with bad intentions
Let the headline readers be outraged lol
And that revenue will be shared with the actual wiki content creators and editors? Right?
Right?
That’s good.
Soooooo No more Pandhadling then right? RIGHT? **RIGHT?**
Make sure you vote to continue funding public libraries when it’s on the ballot in your city or town. The rewrite of truth is happening on the dead internet. Analog will return once people realize tech is just a giant trap for control
Well if it means more money flowing that way then good I have been donating for about a year now
Good data is hard to find. No, really…
Good. They deserve it. It’s basically the best place to data scrape since it has source links to all of the articles related to the page topic.
Honestly, this feels overdue.
Wikipedia has been a foundational data source for AI, so compensating them helps keep the project sustainable without compromising neutrality — as long as transparency stays intact.
Wikipedia have alot of unverified data now they gonna feed that to AIs
Am I supposed to think this is a bad thing? This is great
Isn’t the big complaint about AI is that it’s plagiarism? Not plagiarism if you pay for the rights to train on it
Guess my $5 a month donations can stop now
Yeah it was always a trash heap of misinformation.
Now it’s going to be a manicured trash heap of misinformation.
There is a really interesting comment by a user on the article’s site ([Plutoisaplanet](https://www.techspot.com/community/members/plutoisaplanet.422490/)) .
That user is basically drawing a comparison using Stackoverflow, saying it is the same process, in how it first was used a source for AI companies for training and then ended up getting completely replaced by it.
That user proposed, if it follows the same path, Wikipedia is doomed as well.
Do you agree/disagree ?
Hahaha! I knew what the Internet was gonna be totally crap… it only took 25 years.
Back to print?
I really can’t stand tech billionaires controlling my information.
[Technofeudalism is their goal and everyone that isn’t a billionaire will all suffer](https://youtu.be/rqR7z2eHOBE?si=HkGzgS6CiX8-GVLY)
Wikipedia is dead long time ago
There’s a long overdue protocol to build here. Scraping is a dumb way to get data and they’re not paying for it. The industry needs to agree on standardized APIs for AI to consume data from content providers and provide compensation.
Does this mean they’ll stop asking me for $2.17?
Now they absolutely have no reason to beg for donations
Hopefully they don’t get corrupted by them.