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Wikipedia Contributions in the Wake of ChatGPT

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Listed:
  • Liang Lyu
  • James Siderius
  • Hannah Li
  • Daron Acemoglu
  • Daniel Huttenlocher
  • Asuman Ozdaglar

Abstract

How has Wikipedia activity changed for articles with content similar to ChatGPT following its introduction? We estimate the impact using differences-in-differences models, with dissimilar Wikipedia articles as a baseline for comparison, to examine how changes in voluntary knowledge contributions and information-seeking behavior differ by article content. Our analysis reveals that newly created, popular articles whose content overlaps with ChatGPT 3.5 saw a greater decline in editing and viewership after the November 2022 launch of ChatGPT than dissimilar articles did. These findings indicate heterogeneous substitution effects, where users selectively engage less with existing platforms when AI provides comparable content. This points to potential uneven impacts on the future of human-driven online knowledge contributions.

Suggested Citation

  • Liang Lyu & James Siderius & Hannah Li & Daron Acemoglu & Daniel Huttenlocher & Asuman Ozdaglar, 2025. "Wikipedia Contributions in the Wake of ChatGPT," Papers 2503.00757, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2503.00757
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Sook Lim, 2009. "How and why do college students use Wikipedia?," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 60(11), pages 2189-2202, November.
    2. Ilia Shumailov & Zakhar Shumaylov & Yiren Zhao & Nicolas Papernot & Ross Anderson & Yarin Gal, 2024. "AI models collapse when trained on recursively generated data," Nature, Nature, vol. 631(8022), pages 755-759, July.
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