Wikipedia bans AI-generated content after 5% of new articles show machine-written text
wikipedia found 5% of new articles had substantial ai-generated content, now restricts ai to translation and proofreading. human editors worry ai will replace them.
in 2018 google trained ai to write wikipedia-like articles. by october 2024, a princeton university study found 5% of 3000 new english wikipedia articles contained substantial ai-generated content. wikipedians initially tried to shape ai output but by march 2026, ai content was found to violate core principles so often that writing with large language models was banned, restricted to translation and minor proofreading. human editors worry that ai will replace their work, creating a downward spiral and a soulless wikipedia.