When asked whether Wikipedia might consider blocking AI crawlers entirely, Wales acknowledged that it is a “possible but complicated” decision.
Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales has urged major technology companies, including Google and OpenAI, to start paying for the extensive use of Wikipedia’s content in training artificial intelligence (AI) models. Wales said that while Wikipedia’s information is freely licensed, the increasing use of its data by AI companies has created a growing financial and technical strain on the non-profit organisation.
“AI bots are costing us money,” says Wales
Speaking to Reuters, Wales explained that Wikipedia’s content forms a major part of the training data used by large language models (LLMs), the same systems that power AI chatbots such as ChatGPT and Google Gemini. However, he added that the surge in automated traffic from AI crawlers is putting stress on the platform’s servers and infrastructure.
“We’re a big part of the training data for all the major LLMs. Everything in Wikipedia is freely licensed for people to do as they please with it,” Wales said. “But on a more practical level, the AI bots crawling Wikipedia are imposing quite a lot of costs on us.”
Wikipedia’s proposal to tech giants
Wales clarified that Wikipedia is not looking to change its open-access model but wants AI companies to compensate for their usage through its enterprise product, a paid API service designed for large-scale data access.
“We’re trying to say, you should use our enterprise product and pay us for your usage,” Wales explained.
He added that the Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia, operates solely on public donations. These funds are meant to maintain and improve the platform, not to subsidise for-profit AI companies.
“It’s not really fair to our donors if people are donating to support Wikipedia, but then we’re spending that money to support OpenAI and Google and stuff like that,” he said.
Possible restrictions ahead
When asked whether Wikipedia might consider blocking AI crawlers entirely, Wales acknowledged that it is a “possible but complicated” decision. While some within the organisation have discussed the idea, Wales said that outright restrictions could limit public access and contradict Wikipedia’s open ethos.
“I’ve heard some rumblings,” he said, hinting at ongoing internal discussions about how to balance openness with sustainability.
The call for payment comes amid growing tensions between AI developers and content creators worldwide. Several publishers and media houses have already sought compensation from AI companies for using their copyrighted material in training datasets, and now, Wikipedia, one of the internet’s largest repositories of human knowledge, appears ready to join that conversation.
The article originally appeared on Hindustan Times
