Wikipedia has recently made changes to its content policy, prohibiting the use of AI-generated text in its articles. The new guidelines categorically prohibit the use of large language models (LLMs) in writing articles or paraphrasing website pages. While the platform takes a strict stance against artificial intelligence, it has granted editors two exceptions, allowing them to use these tools to make language edits to pages and translate pages from any language to English. However, it warned shareholders to be careful when using AI chatbots.
On a new project page, Wikipedia revealed its updated content policy, explaining: “The use of large language models (LLMs) to create or rewrite article content is prohibited.” The free online encyclopedia confirmed that this decision was made because the use of artificial intelligence-generated texts via chatbots, such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, DeepSeek, and others, “violates many of Wikipedia’s core content policies.”
The main problem that the non-profit platform seeks to address is the verifiability and neutrality of the text. Content produced by artificial intelligence may sometimes change the meaning of the text, making it not supported by reliable sources. The problem of bias surrounding artificial intelligence may also cause accuracy issues, given Wikipedia’s heavy emphasis on the quality of articles.
However, Wikipedia excluded editors in two cases. First, editors are allowed to use machine learning and chatbots to suggest simple linguistic edits to their writing. These edits can be integrated into the page after review by editors, provided that the AI does not add content on its own. Wikipedia asks editors to be careful when using these tools.
Second, Wikipedia allows editors to use AI-powered chatbots to translate articles from other languages into the English version. However, editors were asked to follow AI-assisted translation guidelines, which is that machine-translated texts must be classified as “machine translated” and need to be reviewed, and such texts are approved only after human review.
This move from Wikipedia comes in light of the increase in public posts generated by artificial intelligence on social media platforms, with many expressing concerns about its replacement by human-written content and its credibility.
