Wikipedia limits AI translation of articles due to ‘hallucinations’

Wikipedia editors have introduced new restrictions on some authors who translated articles using artificial intelligence tools. The reason was numerous errors in such materials, associated with the so-called AI hallucinations. The situation is reported by the publication 404 Media.

Problems arose around the Open Knowledge Association (OKA), which pays remuneration to third-party authors for translating articles into different languages.

Translation errors and editors’ claims

According to Wikipedia editors, some of the translations were performed using large language models, including Gemini and ChatGPT. Previously, the project also used Grok, but it was later abandoned due to insufficient reliability.

Wikipedia editor Ilyas Leble said that during a selective review of several articles, he immediately discovered a number of errors.

According to him, sources were replaced in some materials, as well as sentences were added without references or explanations. In one case, an article about the 1879 French Senate elections included paragraphs taken from materials unrelated to the topic of the article.

The editors note that the problems are not only related to the work of AI. The human factor played a significant role. According to them, some authors have poor command of English, do not check the results of the translation and do not add the necessary sources.

New restrictions for translators

As a result, the editors decided to impose restrictions on individual authors who collaborated with OKA. At the same time, they did not introduce a complete ban on such translations.

Currently, a warning system is in place for such translators. If an author receives four warnings for poor-quality content within six months, the fifth will automatically lead to blocking.

Materials created by such authors may be deleted unless another editor with a proven reputation takes responsibility for checking them.

How the payment system works

The Open Knowledge Association offers translators a salary of $397 per month for work up to 40 hours per week. The job description also states that the expected workload is from 5 to 20 articles per week, depending on their size.

The organization says that the priority remains not the number of articles, but the time spent on work and the quality of the materials.

After the problems, OKA began to introduce an additional stage of checking translated articles using a separate language model. However, Wikipedia editors themselves note that checking content created by AI using another AI does not seem to be a reliable solution.