Wikipedia Demands Payment from AI Companies as Tech Giants Rely on Human Editors to Prevent Model Collapse

Wikipedia demands payment from AI companies as tech giants increasingly rely on the platform's human-edited content to prevent their AI models from collapsing, with the Wikimedia Foundation calling for proper attribution and financial support to sustain operations that provide the transparent, verifiable knowledge that AI systems desperately need but cannot replicate themselves.

• Wikipedia serves as the backbone of AI knowledge systems, with generative AI relying heavily on human-curated content from Wikipedia's volunteer editors to avoid model collapse and maintain accuracy
• The Wikimedia Foundation calls on AI developers to provide proper attribution and financial support through the Wikimedia Enterprise platform to sustain Wikipedia's operations as AI companies increasingly use its content
• Wikipedia maintains its value through human-driven processes of discussion, debate, and consensus that AI cannot replicate, offering transparency and verifiability that generative AI systems lack due to their tendency to hallucinate false information