Incident 7: Wikipedia Vandalism Prevention Bot Loop
Entities
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CSETv1 Taxonomy Classifications
Taxonomy DetailsHarm Distribution Basis
none
Sector of Deployment
information and communication
CSETv0 Taxonomy Classifications
Taxonomy DetailsFull Description
Wikipedia bots meant to help edit articles through artificial intelligence clash with each other, undoing the other's edits repetitively. The bots are meant to remove vandalism on the open-source, open-input site, however they have begun to disagree with each other and form infintie feedback loops of correcting the other's edits. Two notable cases are the face off between Xqbot and Darnkessbot that has led to 3,629 edited articles between 2009-2010 and between Tachikoma and Russbot leading to more than 3,000 edits. These edits have occurred across articles in 13 languages on Wikipedia, with the most ocurring in Portuguese language articles and the least occurring in German language articles. The whole situation has been described as a "bot-on-bot editing war."
Short Description
Wikipedia bots meant to remove vandalism clash with each other and form feedback loops of repetitve undoing of the other bot's edits.
Severity
Negligible
Harm Type
Other:Harm to publicly available information
AI System Description
Wikipedia editing bots meant to remove vandalism on the site
System Developer
Wikipedia
Sector of Deployment
Information and communication
Relevant AI functions
Perception, Cognition, Action
AI Techniques
Content editing bot
AI Applications
AI content creation, AI content editing
Location
Global
Named Entities
Wikipedia
Technology Purveyor
Wikipedia
Beginning Date
2001-01-01T00:00:00.000Z
Ending Date
2010-01-01T00:00:00.000Z
Near Miss
Unclear/unknown
Intent
Accident
Lives Lost
No
Data Inputs
Wikipedia articles, edits from other bots
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
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For many it is no more than the first port of call when a niggling question raises its head. Found on its pages are answers to mysteries from the fate of male anglerfish, the joys of dorodango, and the improbable death of Aeschylus.
But ben…
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Analysis An investigation into Wikipedia bots has confirmed the automated editing software can be just as pedantic and petty as humans are – often engaging in online spats that can continue for years.
What's interesting is that bots behave …
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- View the report at the Internet Archive
It turns out Wikipedia's automated edit 'bots' have been waging a cyber-war between each other for over a decade by changing each other's corrections -- and it's getting worse.
Researchers at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom r…
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Getty Images
No one saw the crisis coming: a coordinated vandalistic effort to insert Squidward references into articles totally unrelated to Squidward. In 2006, Wikipedia was really starting to get going, and really couldn’t afford to have…
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- View the report at the Internet Archive
Wiki Bots That Feud for Years Highlight the Troubled Future of AI
The behavior of bots is often unpredictable and sometimes leads them to produce errors over and over again in a potentially infinite feedback loop.
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- View the report at the Internet Archive
Science fiction is lousy with tales of artificial intelligence run amok. There's HAL 9000, of course, and the nefarious Skynet system from the "Terminator" films. Last year, the sinister AI Ultron came this close to defeating the Avengers, …
Variants
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