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From: Ilario valdelli via Wikimedia-l <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Date: Thu, Jan 29, 2026 at 9:01 AM
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Published: WMCH roundtable report on “Collective
Intelligence vs Artificial Intelligence” – why we did it and what’s next
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Cc: Ilario valdelli <valdelli(a)gmail.com>
Dear all,
I’d like to share that Wikimedia CH and Open Future have published the
report from our Lausanne roundtable “Collective Intelligence vs Artificial
Intelligence” (4 Nov 2025), co-organised with Open Future and IMD Business
School.
I also want to add a bit of context on *why* we did this, because it comes
out of a very concrete moment for many of us: over the past year, it has
sometimes felt like “Wikimedia + AI” discussions were happening everywhere,
yet at the same time the community’s shared space for sensemaking was
getting thinner — less clarity, less common ground, and more uncertainty
about where to focus limited time and resources. Internally at WMCH, we
reached a point where we needed to step back and ask: *what should we do in
this period, and where should we allocate our resources in a way that is
useful for the Movement?*
From that starting point, we began working with external partners to
improve our understanding of what is changing in the information ecosystem.
Among others, we exchanged with the AI research ecosystem in Switzerland
(e.g., IDSIA - Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence of Lugano)
and, together with input from Open Future, we converged on a simple idea:
instead of debating AI only through the lens of “editing with AI tools”, we
should widen the circle and ask experts from outside the Movement what they
see coming — and what it could mean for a knowledge commons like Wikimedia.
That led to the Lausanne roundtable: a deliberately “cross-ecosystem”
discussion with people working in areas such as AI development and data
science, journalism and media, research, and public-interest policy,
alongside people from the Wikimedia ecosystem. The goal was not to produce
a single answer, but to map the key tensions and update our collective
assumptions about the near future — and to do it in a way that is
transparent and shareable with the wider community.
The report summarises those insights and frames the emergence of a “new
knowledge loop”, in which AI services increasingly become interfaces to
knowledge. One concern raised is disintermediation: Wikimedia content can
be heavily used by machines while fewer humans visit Wikimedia projects
directly — with potential consequences for participation, feedback loops,
and long-term sustainability. At the same time, the report argues there is
no “going back”: AI influence is not avoidable, and the open question is
how collective intelligence and AI can be combined while keeping Wikimedia
human-centred.
A quick note on intent and framing: this is a *civic sensemaking* effort.
It is not a proposal to restrict open access for people, and it is not an
attempt to tell the Movement what to do. The underlying question is: *how
do we keep the commons open and accessible to everyone, while making its
large-scale reuse sustainable and accountable?* In other words, how do we
avoid a future where knowledge remains technically “open” but becomes
practically concentrated behind a few AI interfaces?
This report is also meant as a first step. There is the plan to develop a
draft white paper in 2026, building on these insights, to outline possible
strategic directions and reactions — not only for WMCH, but as a
contribution that other communities, affiliates, and interested Wikimedians
can critique, improve, and build on.
Links:
- Meta page (context + deliverables):
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CH/Innovation/CI_vs_AI#Deliverabl…
- PDF on Commons:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_CH_REPORT_AI_v4_web.pdf
Feedback is very welcome.
--
Ilario Valdelli
Innovation programme lead
Wikimedia CH
Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens
Association pour l’avancement des connaissances libre
Associazione per il sostegno alla conoscenza libera
http://www.wikimedia.ch
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