• merc@sh.itjust.works
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    15 days ago

    Um… it does what?

    Anyhow, not only is AI scraping (not scrubbing, that’s something completely different) Wikipedia, the Wikipedia licenses allow the AI companies to use the materials. Wikipedia content is licensed CC BY-SA or GFDL. So, while Wikipedia could try to block the scrapers, they can’t block the companies from using the content as long as they comply with those (very open) licenses. And, really, this is part of how I want Wikipedia to be used. Not necessarily to train up chatbots, but I want it to be a freely available, freely usable source of knowledge for the world. I like it that it isn’t knowledge that’s hidden behind some firewall. And, if chatbots are going to be trained on the contents of the Internet, at least we know that some of the training data will be good, factual knowledge, not memes, lies, propaganda, etc.

    So, while I’m not happy with anything where data is being sold to the AI companies, in this case I’ll try to get over my knee-jerk reaction and see it as a good thing. Wikipedia gets paid for something that was already freely available, and maybe the jazzed-up autocomplete will more frequently autocomplete from a good source.

    • Bigfishbest@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Your knowledge in this field supersedes mine, I defer to you. I merely summarized the article in my simple understanding. Which, I feel is kinda the same as what you said, only simpler and less accurate. Thank you for the elaboration.

      Also, grinds my gears is an expression, and so is gets my goat. Yet clichés make us all dumber so I decided to grab the readers attention with a mangled metaphor, hoping it would draw smiles and further attention.