alt Hacker NewsHumans will never again create a project like Wikipedia
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maybe the headline is not a statement but a demand
AI would need projects like this to harvest human knowledge so...
The paywall here is hilariously ironic. Indeed, the humans at economist will never release something free like Wikipedia!
Challenge accepted.
We have many others...
I wish people would never again create websites like the economist, or all kind of yellow press bs
Sounds like some MAGA bros I am friends with who were telling me in 2024 that Democrats would "never" take power again.
Making "never" predictions is a dangerous game, especially when you are talking about human beings doing something they already did in the past.
These are also the geniuses who thought Fukuyama was right when he declared the end of history.
If someone wants to learn to accomplish something tangible in the real world, there's probably no better place than YouTube, TikTok, etc.
Yes there are ads, yes there's slop, and yes it still remains a trove of practical human knowledge which would astound a 1926 American far more than Wikipedia ever did.
Compare the Wiki article with step by step PNGs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-Windsor_knot
To the thousands of examples one can find on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=tying+a+half+wi...
I love to read and have spent more of my life reading than probably anything else. It's my favorite way to learn. Most people do not love to read and would rather learn from another person.
I think humans will never create another Wikipedia because we're already creating something better. YouTube is just the lucky torchbearer, I think. Now that people know they can film themselves teaching or doing something they're good at, and other people will positively engage and maybe even pay them real money, there's no stopping the firehose.
In 10,000 years I imagine the 2020s will be seen less like the end and more like the beginning of human knowledge sharing.
Humans already created the superior Grokipedia[0].
For every Wikipedia article, Grokipedia has a better one.
we literally have youtube, the most complete knowledge corpus in human history
AI, however ...
I'm glad. Wikipedia has never aligned with scientific philosophers on what is and isn't worth believing (e.g. citation standards). This dissuades many scientists from contributing and universities from trusting the platform. Its ubiquity serves to damage the scientific forum, and empowers not the educated scientist or the layman, but the small wealthy group dictating the rules of citation for their own empowerment and political footing.
AI makes possible a replacement that might be more deeply founded in scientific philosophy, and more strictly curated. Things that humans have proven are very difficult.
Wikipedia was made from the free labor of IT admin staff and disabled people, both had free time in a typical day to build and curate it.
If I were to make wikipedia today it would contain only bullet pointed facts with sources for each. Articles would have unlimited length. Pagination if an article gets over a million lines.
No exceptions.
An absolute source and collation of human truth.
Never is a long time. The economist, come on.
I suppose humans will never again create a project quite like the old printed encyclopedias, either ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
the titles statement is bombastic even by current standards where the trifecta of nialism, narcisism and nostalgia are the characteristics found in so many of our 'leading voices'
Why do people even entertain this idea lol.
paywall; dr
Isn't this rather rich, though? the internet itself is a collaborative project - even TCP/IP is. I have a hard time imagining a cogent argument for why cooperation is dead.
I think we're mainly missing some legal framework. For instance, suppose we stopped allowing social media companies to borg our content. Require open access to all SM content, make anti-inter-op illegal. Yes, it's true that SM companies spend a lot to provide "free" services, but I'd claim that it does not follow that the necessary consequence is walled gardens. That thinking dates from prehistory, when computers and networking were, you know, expensive.
ummm has anyone even heard of the arrstack lol
Wikipedia has been an excellent resource for LLMs, and seems to be one of their prime resources. Make of that what you will.
See also the New Yorker today: "The Death Knell of Digital Search" https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/the-death-...
Sad hyper-end stage capitalists (economist.com) see only their own reflection, and cannot fathom why people would donate time to help each other and humanity.
"Humans will never again create a project like Wikipedia" aaaaaand it's paywalled. The irony.
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I predict the opposite: Humans will collectively create something like an LLM, but curated. That will be next level for Wikipedia-like project.
Think about it - LLM is just a computer program that predicts a next word. So it has a very detailed, formal description of each concept it can represent in its residual vector.
I think humans will understand (perhaps with AI help) these formal descriptions and put them into a giant database.
Economists (not the website) and accurate predictions are two very different things, first.
The economists, the website site, second.
Humans will never fly, etc. Third.
(Extra point for the paywall).
Not with this attitude.