King's College London

Last week, King’s welcomed founder of Wikipedia Jimmy Wales to Strand Campus for a talk and panel session to a packed-out crowd on trust and knowledge in the age of generative AI, following an in-depth one-on-one interview on the future of AI and Higher Education.

In a world where 70% of the British public use AI chatbots and the UK reports historically low levels of trust, the King’s Institute of Artificial Intelligence (KIAI) gathered experts across academia, journalism and the third sector to discuss the future of the information sphere.

Wales began the evening with a short introduction on the fast-moving power of AI, pointing to how powerful models poised to change the world could run operate on devices as small as a smartphone.

He then laid out how his online encyclopedia, through its free and high-quality sharing of information, quietly became a trusted source for LLMs the world over – earning a moniker from Co-Director of KIAI Professor Elena Simperl as, the ‘most absurdly optimistic project’ at the heart of the modern internet in the process.

After questioning the sporting prowess of the AI Institute’s logo, Wales joined the assembled panel which first spoke about how Wikipedia became the most successful information commons project in the world.

Dr Giota Alevizou, Lecturer in Digital Humanities and Culture, and Wales outlined the community, custodianship and human effort which keeps the site going before examining how its governance structure puts it in a unique position when dealing with the AI hallucinations which may render its content inaccurate.

Panel chair Professor Simperl then pivoted the conversation towards open data and generative AI, where writer and journalist James O’Malley spoke of the need for the government to adopt a Wikipedia like model for AI, providing abundant and high-quality data for companies to build models for the public good.

Talk then turned to the future of AI regulation. Director of AI think tank the Ada Lovelace Institute, Gaia Marcus, elucidated on the public perceptions towards AI – which she argued were often more nuanced than policymakers believed.

Citing a recent report by her institute, she argued that 9 out of 10 people in the UK wanted to see the country pursue an independent regulatory approach, that valued fairness over economic gain.

While this was followed by debate over regulation of the creative industries and the risks of legislating against AI growth in the face of the US and China, the panel ultimately concluded by returning to the Wikipedia rule as their guiding principle – If whatever you’re going to do is going to break Wikipedia, don’t do it.

The event was followed by a lively Q&A session and a drinks reception.

If you missed it, you can see the full recording of the talk and panel session, as well as the recorded interview with Jimmy Wales on the King’s Institute of Artificial Intelligence YouTube channel.