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Jimmy Wales

founder of Wikipedia

3 records

Portrait source: ZMcCune (WMF), CC BY-SA 4.0

Records

Yeah, so we're looking at AI as a potential useful tool for our community, because AI has an enormous hallucination problem. It doesn't really understand what's true and what's not true, it can just write and write very plausible things.

Jimmy Wales

founder of Wikipedia

In a February 2026 Times Now interview at the India AI Impact Summit, Jimmy Wales said Wikipedia is looking at AI as a potential useful tool for its community, and that AI has an enormous hallucination problem -- it does not really understand what is true and what is not true and can write very plausible things.

Founder of WikipediaPublished February 18, 2026 · date of remarks not establishedET Now interview at the India AI Impact Summit 2026

SourceArchived
Context and checks

Surrounding words

Q: Wikipedia depends on human knowledge and verifiability. In the era of AI, how much does it impact your platform? Yeah, so we're looking at AI as a potential useful tool for our community, because AI has an enormous hallucination problem. It doesn't really understand what's true and what's not true, it can just write and write very plausible things. For us that human element is more important than ever, that you have to really check and check the facts and reliable sources and discuss and debate and all the things that we do at Wikipedia.

What this quote does not say

  • SCOPE: the concern is factual reliability of AI output for encyclopaedic use. Nothing here speaks to catastrophic, control or security risk.
  • The same answer continues 'For us that human element is more important than ever', and later in the interview Wales says Wikipedia expects to use AI tools 'to help find problems and errors' with 'humans firmly in charge' -- consistent with, not undercutting, the quote.

How this was checked

  • Quote matched character-for-character against the captured page.

Reviewed by

an AI reviewer that read the whole source · an automatic character-by-character check

It’s not a disaster, but it seems meaningful,

Jimmy Wales

founder of Wikipedia

In a May 2026 Guardian Australia interview, Jimmy Wales said the 8% drop in Wikipedia's human traffic since the arrival of AI chatbots is “not a disaster, but it seems meaningful”.

Founder of WikipediaPublished May 4, 2026 · date of remarks not establishedGuardian Australia interview

Source
Context and checks

Surrounding words

AI ‘not a disaster’ for Wikipedia Since the arrival of ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Grok – AI chatbots designed to answer user queries - Wales said Wikipedia had seen an 8% drop in human traffic. “It’s not a disaster, but it seems meaningful,” he said. Wales said the loss was largely to low-engagement traffic – people who are looking for a quick answer to a question rather than a more in-depth experience where they are “reading a dozen articles and following links and going

What this quote does not say

  • In the same interview Wales adds countervailing points: AI crawlers are 'really hammering' Wikipedia and are 'disproportionately expensive' to serve, and AI answers 'frequently makes mistakes', 'especially true the more obscure the topic'.
  • No separate interview date is established; only the article's publication date.

How this was checked

  • Quote matched character-for-character against the captured page.

Reviewed by

an AI reviewer that read the whole source · an automatic character-by-character check

Statements they signed

FROM THE SIGNED STATEMENT

When it comes to AI safety and security, openness is an antidote, not a poison.

Signed statement: “Joint Statement on AI Safety and Openness” (Mozilla)

Jimmy Wales

founder of Wikipedia

Signed as part of a group statement. Not spoken.

Jimmy Wales was listed as a signer of the “Joint Statement on AI Safety and Openness,” which said open, responsible, and transparent approaches are critical to AI safety and security.

Date not establishedJoint Statement on AI Safety and Openness

SourceArchived
Context and checks

Surrounding words

Foundation - Eric Von Hippel, MIT Sloan School of Business - Moez Draief, Mozilla.ai - Pelonomi Moiloa, LelapaAI - Philippe Beaudoin, Waverly - Raffi Krikorian, Technically Optimistic - Audrey Tang, Minister of Digital Affairs, Taiwan - Jimmy Wales, Wikimedia Foundation - Krishna Gade, Fiddler AI - John Borthwick, Betaworks - Karim Lakhani, Harvard Business School - Stefano Maffulli, Open Source Initiative - Arvind Narayanan, Princeton University - Aviya Skowron, EleutherAI -

How this was checked

  • The organiser's own roster lists this person as a signer.

Reviewed by

an AI reviewer that read the whole source