How AI Reshapes Human Content Creation: The Case of Wikipedia 

Abstract

Generative AI models rely on large volumes of user-generated content (UGC), yet we know little about how AI tools affect the production of that underlying content. We study this question by examining the short-run impact of the introduction of Grokipedia, an AI-generated online encyclopedia operated by xAI, which provides automated entries that could either substitute for human editing or draw in new contributors. We develop a simple theoretical framework in which AI entries can redirect user attention and stimulate human editing through novel framing, yielding ambiguous effects on UGC ex ante. Using a new panel dataset covering 1.4 million Wikipedia pages of notable individuals, we exploit the fact that only a subset have comparable Grokipedia entries to estimate the causal effect of AI on subsequent human contributions, constructing matched samples of treated and untreated pages within occupational fields. We find a consistent and surprising result: the availability of Grokipedia increases human editing activity. Page views also rise, suggesting that AI entries act as an attention amplifier rather than a pure substitute for Wikipedia content. Exploiting variation in the semantic similarity between Grokipedia entries and their corresponding Wikipedia articles, we further show that pages with lower similarity experience larger increases in editing after Grokipedia’s launch, consistent with the model’s predictions. Taken together, our findings indicate that embedded AI tools can complement—rather than crowd out—voluntary human contributions, highlighting a positive feedback loop between AI features and the data ecosystem that sustains modern AI models.

Keywords: Digital Platforms, Artificial Intelligence, User-Generated Content, Wikipedia

JEL Classification: D83, L82, L86