In the Age of AI, Knowledge Faces a Crisis — And We Must Act Now

 

In the Age of AI, Knowledge Faces a Crisis — And We Must Act Now

– ChatGPT Surpasses Wikipedia for the First Time

In April 2025, a historic shift occurred.
For the first time ever, ChatGPT’s monthly traffic reached 780 million, surpassing Wikipedia’s 716 million visits.
(Source: SimilarWeb, April 2025)

This milestone reflects more than numbers—it reveals a profound transformation in how we seek and consume knowledge.

We must take action now


1. The Rise of ‘Zero-Click’ and the Fall of Open Knowledge Platforms

AI tools like ChatGPT and Google AI Overview have changed how users interact with information.
Instead of clicking through to source websites, people now consume summarized answers directly from AI interfaces.

This ‘zero-click’ trend has caused:

  • Significant drops in source website traffic

  • Reduced incentive and revenue for content creators

  • A growing detachment from original, verifiable information

Most notably, Wikipedia’s global traffic has dropped by over 1.1 billion average monthly visits between 2022 and 2025—a dramatic decline for the world’s largest open knowledge platform.

If this continues, we may soon rely on AI-generated summaries without supporting the very systems that make knowledge possible.


2. AI Processes Data — But It Doesn’t Create New Knowledge

AI excels at summarizing and recombining existing data.
But original discovery, scientific exploration, and philosophical thought remain uniquely human.

Human curiosity powers fields like basic science, ethics, and the arts—areas that cannot be replicated through statistics alone.
If these pursuits weaken, even AI will stagnate for lack of new input.

Protecting knowledge creators is not just ethical—it ensures AI’s own sustainability.


3. Four Key Proposals for a Healthy Knowledge Ecosystem

① Fair Compensation for Knowledge Producers

  • Mandate transparency in AI training datasets

  • Implement profit-sharing models based on contribution

② Mandatory Source Attribution and Transparency

  • Require AI outputs to include source links

  • Empower users with data on reliability and traceability

③ Educating Responsible Information Users

  • Expand media literacy and source evaluation in schools

  • Promote a culture of “responsible consumption of information”

④ Collaboration Between AI and Public Knowledge Platforms

  • Encourage open-access platforms to partner with AI tools

  • Support public AI APIs and co-authorship with verified contributors


4. Global Collaboration Is Urgently Needed

We must ask:

“What fuels AI’s intelligence?”
“Are we fairly recognizing those who built the foundations of knowledge?”

Ignoring these questions risks a future where information is shallow, biased, and controlled by algorithms rather than truth-seeking humans.

To prevent this, governments, technologists, researchers, and educators must collaborate to design a sustainable, fair, and transparent information infrastructure.


5. Conclusion: Why We Must Act Now

We stand at a crossroads between convenience and sustainability.
If we favor only speed, we risk losing the people who generate original knowledge.

If we don’t act now, the creators of tomorrow may disappear.
A fair ecosystem—where credit, compensation, and transparency flourish—is not a luxury.
It is the foundation of a meaningful digital future.

The creators of knowledge (humans) and processors of knowledge (AI) must work in harmony.



Present to the world – Ideas. Tech. Learn. Impact.
Beyond convenience. Beyond AI.
Let’s preserve the roots of human knowledge.


📚 Sources

  • SimilarWeb, Top Websites Ranking, April 2025

  • SimilarWeb, Wikipedia Traffic Trends, 2022–2025

by pre2w

See the Korean version here


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