This is a damning article from the Wikipedia editors on GenAI articles written for Wikipedia: https://wikiedu.org/blog/2026/01/29/generative-ai-and-wikipedia-editing-what-we-learned-in-2025/

[shafik@hachyderm.io]

This is a damning article from the Wikipedia editors on GenAI articles written for Wikipedia: https://wikiedu.org/blog/2026/01/29/generative-ai-and-wikipedia-editing-what-we-learned-in-2025/

#ai

[mycotropic@beige.party]

@shafik

You're describing my freshman class from the fall semester! We had to add in two additional lectures to help them grasp citations and why using AI for them is wrong at least 50% of the time.

[alexjgriffith@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@shafik this aligns with my experience, where an AI "summary" will turn up a useful reference, but the reference does not corroborate the summary.

[shafik@hachyderm.io]

@arthfach

if the editors can not keep up, then yes.

[shafik@hachyderm.io]

@Alexjgriffith

That is how I use the summaries, to obtain vocabulary and references and I tend to ignore the content as once I know the vocabulary and good source.

I can just read those and no have to verify the summary, which you always will need to do.

[shafik@hachyderm.io]

@mycotropic

Thank you for teaching people that.

[shafik@hachyderm.io]

Ok this has left my network.

I am better known for my C++ quizzes:

https://hachyderm.io/tags/Cpppolls

and my cursed code:

https://hachyderm.io/search?q=from%3Ashafik+cursed+code&type=statuses

Also my dad jokes but I don't have handy reference for those, so you will have to just follow if you like dad jokes.

[mrundkvist@archaeo.social]

@shafik Yep, there's no intelligence there. A reference is just yet another sequence of words that is statistically probable.

#aibubble

[thecybermatron@someone.elses.computer]

@shafik Welcome to the life of every University lecturer marking essays right now.

[stepheneb@ruby.social]

@shafik
Interesting!
“Our early interventions with participants who were flagged as using generative AI for exercises that would not enter mainspace seemed to head off their future use of generative AI. We supported 6,357 new editors in fall 2025, and only 217 of them (or 3%) had multiple AI alerts. Only 5% of the participants we supported had mainspace AI alerts. That means thousands of participants successfully edited Wikipedia without using generative AI to draft their content.”

[shafik@hachyderm.io]

@TheCybermatron

I am sorry

[shafik@hachyderm.io]

@stepheneb

Yes, education definitely helps. There have been several reports that if people using LLMs in a way that makes their flaws obvious they learn and use them in more appropriate ways.

If they can keep up, it should not be a big problem. Sounds like they have a hold of it.

[shafik@hachyderm.io]

@Susan60

For sure, tools are useful when you use them appropriately.