Wikipedia has prohibited the use of large language models to produce content for the online encyclopedia, restricting users to using AI only for copy editing and technical tasks such as formatting. The only substantive exception is for full-article translation.
Text generated by large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, DeepSeek etc. often violates several of Wikipedia's core content policies. For this reason, the use of LLMs to generate or rewrite article content is prohibited, save for these two exceptions:
1. Editors are permitted to use LLMs to suggest basic copyedits to their own writing, and to incorporate some of them after human review, provided the LLM does not introduce content of its own. Caution is required, because LLMs can go beyond what you ask of them and change the meaning of the text such that it is not supported by the sources cited.
2. Editors are permitted to use LLMs to translate articles from another language's Wikipedia into the English Wikipedia, but must follow the guidance laid out at Wikipedia:LLM-assisted translation.
The usual policy process applies, and Wikipedia warned editors not to witch-hunt one another: "Some editors may have similar writing styles to LLMs. More evidence than just stylistic or linguistic signs is needed to justify sanctions, and it is best to consider the text's compliance with core content policies and recent edits by the editor in question."
Last year, Wikipedia experimented with AI-generated overviews at the top of articles, drawing immediate and overwhelming backlash. Wikimedia, the foundation behind the encyclopedia, has since urged AI companies to stop scraping its content and use the paid API instead. Wikipedia is published under terms that AI companies don't honor and couldn't even if they wanted to.
Previously:
• Early Wikipedia logo designs included a book centipede mascot
• Wikipedia's list of inventors killed by their own inventions keeps growing
• Wikipedia made doomscrollable
