Wikipedia co-founder: AI not trusted enough for direct editing

Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales said the platform won't let AI edit articles directly because AI's 'hallucination' problem is still very serious — models often output false info confidently. Newer AI models have improved a bit, but the issue remains 'very, very serious'.

Wales noted AI can still help in other ways, like alerting human editors to niche news. Meanwhile, AI platforms are using Wikipedia content heavily, driving up bot traffic but causing human visits to drop 8%. He called this 'worth watching' but 'not a disaster' since Wikipedia relies on donations.

Wales urged AI companies to pay their fair share for server costs, saying 'sending millions of requests creates real expenses.' He said Wikipedia is making progress signing deals with tech giants and starting to block platforms that don't follow the rules.