"Today, when people ask, 'Where was Madonna born?' 'Who won the 1999 Super Bowl?' or 'Who's the current world classical chess champion?' (Bay City, Michigan, the Denver Broncos, and Gukesh Dommaraju), they turn to Wikipedia. Or, to be more exact, if they Google the answer, Wikipedia is the top source, but Google's AI Overview is what they'll see at the search results page. It's Wikipedia writers, however, who did the research for the answers."
"Twenty-five years ago, it was another story. Before 15 January 2001, if you did a Google search, your answers to those earlier questions would have come from a Madonna fan site, ESPN, and the Internet Chess Club. On that day, a small nonprofit launched what seemed like a utopian idea, an encyclopedia that anyone could edit. Today, it's one of the top 10 websites in the world, cited in court rulings, academic papers, and journalism."
Wikipedia is the world's most popular online encyclopedia and a leading open data project maintained by volunteers and donations without advertising. Google often surfaces Wikipedia content in its AI Overview, while Wikipedia contributors perform the underlying research. Wikipedia emerged in January 2001 as an open-edit alternative after the expert-review model of Nupedia failed, producing only a few dozen articles. The open model enabled rapid growth, making Wikipedia one of the top ten websites, cited in courts, academia, and journalism. Ongoing challenges include growing pains and emerging risks from AI that could undermine long-term reliability and value.
Read at ZDNET
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