Wikipedia Editors Want to Help You Catch AI Writing
Volunteer editors are trying to make it easier to identify AI-generated content and Republican members of Congress are targeting Wikipedia over claims of antisemitism.
🔔 Wiki Briefing
Wiki editors publish field guide to AI writing tendencies
Wikipedia editors recently added new tools to combat the scourge of AI slop. Now they're going a step further, creating a comprehensive list of clues to identify AI-generated writing. Even if you don't edit Wikipedia, the list of writing quirks to watch can be helpful for anyone using generative AI to create content.
Some of the hallmarks these editors identify range from the obvious—like including bits of the original prompt—to the infamous—the overuse of em-dashes—to some tendencies easy to miss.
As compiled by editors at WikiProject AI Cleanup, the guide is an excellent resource for anyone who wants their AI-generated text to sound more natural—or who just wants to know if that's what they're reading.
Woodard's Wayward Work
The man who became the subject of the most Wikipedia articles across all language editions isn't a religious figure, world leader, A-list celebrity, or visionary entrepreneur. No, David Woodard is a composer who previously was known, if at all, for writing a "prequiem" for the executed Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.
Photo of David Woodward by idem, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
A volunteer editor looked into why this obscure composer had such a cult global following and found a network of 200-plus accounts working to spread articles about Woodard to 335 of the 343 language editions of Wikipedia, beating out the likes of little-known entities like the United States and planet Earth. The combination of self-promotion and apparent offsite collaboration is a huge violation of Wikipedia's rules and as of September 10, Woodard's footprint had been trimmed to about 20 languages.
The swift action by the volunteer community after this brought to greater attention shows that even successful efforts to manipulate the encyclopedia will eventually be found out. Much like when Burger King tried to manipulate voice assistants with not-so-subtle advertisements on Wikipedia, the volunteer community's rebuke of Woodard shows that it's much better to play by the rules.
📰 In the News
US House puts Wikipedia in crosshairs
A few months after the interim U.S. attorney for Washington, DC sent a pointed inquiry to the Wikimedia Foundation, the House of Representatives Oversight Committee announced it is investigating the encyclopedia for potential efforts by clandestine actors to influence public opinion in the U.S.
In a new letter, Representatives James Comer and Nancy Mace asked the Wikimedia Foundation for a range of information about these alleged efforts, including platform policies on neutrality, records from the Arbitration Committee (Wikipedia's "Supreme Court"), and personally identifiable information like IP addresses of editors who have been sanctioned. That last bit is something the Foundation has historically been resistant to providing to authorities, but has been giving up more frequently.
Key among Mace and Comer's stated concerns is whether alleged antisemitism in Wikipedia content is perpetuated via the training of various AI models on Wikipedia. Allegations that Wikipedia is biased against Israel and tolerates anti-semitic content have been leveled by Jewish groups, media outlets, and conservative activists. Now House Republicans want to see if they can prove it.
🧩 Wikipedia Facts
79,000+: The number of words in a discussion that resulted in an editor being banned from changing capitalizations on Wikipedia.
💡 Tips & Tricks
Want a fresh look when you're browsing Wikipedia? If you register an account, you can take a walk back through time with different themes that take the reading experience back to yesteryear with the decidedly early 2000s appearance of MonoBook or make it more like the mobile experience with MinervaNeue. There are five different skins to choose from. Find your favorite today!
