Wikipedia Halts AI Summary Trial After Editors Warn of Accuracy Risks

Wikipedia has paused its trial of AI-generated article summaries following backlash from its editor community, 404 media reported.

The experiment, launched earlier this month for users with the Wikipedia browser extension who opted in, displayed AI-written summaries at the top of articles, marked with a yellow “unverified” label and expandable on click.

Editors quickly voiced concerns, warning that the feature could undermine the platform’s credibility due to the risk of factual errors—commonly known as AI “hallucinations.”

In response to the criticism, Wikipedia has halted the rollout but hasn’t abandoned the idea altogether.

The organisation has suggested AI-generated summaries could still have a role in improving accessibility and user experience, though any future implementations will likely involve more careful oversight and community involvement.

In April, Wikipedia announced the release of a dedicated dataset specifically designed for AI model training.

The goal is to provide high-quality, machine-readable data directly to developers, thereby deterring bots from aggressively scraping the site.

The dataset, now hosted on Google-owned Kaggle, includes structured Wikipedia content in English and French as of April 15.

It features openly licensed research summaries, short descriptions, infobox data, image links, and article sections—excluding references and markdown formatting.