人工智慧的崛起对维基百科构成了生存威胁，原本期望大型语言模型能协助处理格式化与引用等杂务，但实际上AI生成的内容却充斥著空洞言词与虚假来源。到了2026年3月，维基百科全面禁止使用大型语言模型撰写条目，仅限于翻译与微幅校对，以避免人类编辑沦为替机器收拾善后的无尽苦工，并防止平台陷入缺乏热情、失去灵魂与专家流失的恶性循环。此外，搜寻引擎的AI摘要直接撷取维基百科的成果却大幅降低了点击率，自2022年以来已使其流失近四分之一的读者群，加上年轻世代倾向滑动萤幕吸收碎片化资讯而非深入阅读，以及无偿劳动在经济不稳定时代失去吸引力，都让维基百科面临沦为少数资深编辑维持的「废弃大教堂」或仅是AI训练数据注脚的危机。
从历史与哲学角度来看，百科全书的概念源于启蒙运动的理性主义与进步观，试图透过客观事实的汇集来理解世界并建立道德共识。英国作家威尔斯曾提出「世界大脑」的构想，试图以国际主义的永久世界百科全书来抗衡极权国家的意识形态宣传，但欧威尔则批评这种全知全能的计划可能演变为专制统治的工具，威尔斯本人晚年也对此陷入悲观。哲学家麦金泰尔将「百科全书」列为西方三大道德探究传统之一，这种依赖理性建立客观真相的信念支撑了维基百科的创立，然而其两位共同创办人威尔斯与桑格日后的分道扬镳——一人坚守国际主义与启蒙理性，另一人转向宗教传统与保守政治——正好映照出当代知识机构在假讯息与文化战争冲击下所面临的信念瓦解。
在启蒙运动之前，人类对绝对知识的追求往往在宗教与神话中被视为傲慢的罪孽，例如巴别塔、伊甸园的知善恶树以及希腊与北欧神话中的惩罚，而当代对通用人工智慧（AGI）的追求则像是这种全知野心的数位化终极体现。生物艺术家戴维斯曾计划将英文维基百科写入古老苹果树的DNA中以创造真实的「知识之树」，隐喻著汇集所有人类知识可能带来的诅咒与傲慢。然而，维基百科真正且最持久的价值或许不在于其最终的知识总和，而在于人类共同协作的过程；正如一年一度的维基媒体国际会议上，来自世界各地的编辑穿著各自民族服饰齐聚一堂，在承认人类有限性与易错性的基础上，透过缓慢而谦逊的交流寻求相互理解，体现了「合众为一」的人文精神。
The rise of artificial intelligence poses an existential threat to Wikipedia; while large language models were initially hoped to automate housekeeping tasks like formatting and citations, AI-generated content instead flooded the platform with generic fluff and fake sources. By March 2026, Wikipedia banned writing articles with large language models outright, restricting them to translation and minor proofreading to prevent human editors from being trapped in endless cleanup of machine output and to halt a downward spiral of lost passion, soulless content, and shrinking expert pools. Furthermore, AI search summaries have exploited Wikipedia's content while drastically reducing click-through rates, causing a loss of nearly a quarter of its readership since 2022; combined with a generational shift toward consuming fragmented information and growing skepticism among youth toward unpaid labor during economic precarity, Wikipedia risks becoming an abandoned cathedral maintained by a dwindling priesthood or merely a footnote in AI training data.
From a historical and philosophical perspective, the concept of the encyclopedia stems from Enlightenment rationalism and beliefs in progress, aiming to understand the world and establish moral consensus through the objective collection of facts. H. G. Wells envisioned a "World Brain" as an internationalist permanent encyclopedia to counterbalance totalitarian and nationalist propaganda, though George Orwell critiqued this all-knowing vision as potentially repressive and Wells himself later succumbed to pessimism. Philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre classified "encyclopaedia" as one of three major Western traditions of moral enquiry relying on reason alone to build consensus truth, an outlook that undergirded Wikipedia's founding; however, the divergent paths of cofounders Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger—one remaining committed to Enlightenment rationalism and internationalism, the other returning to religious tradition and conservative politics—serve as a parable for how cultural crosscurrents and disinformation have eroded the immunity of modern knowledge institutions.
Prior to the Enlightenment, the pursuit of absolute knowledge was frequently viewed across religions and mythologies as a doomed act of hubris and sin, as seen in the stories of the Tower of Babel, the Garden of Eden, Prometheus, and Odin, while the modern pursuit of artificial general intelligence (AGI) represents the digital culmination of this desire for total understanding. Bio-artist Joe Davis once highlighted this forbidden nature by attempting to encode English Wikipedia into the DNA of an ancient apple tree strain to create a living Tree of Knowledge, underscoring the notion that the sum of all knowledge is cursed. Ultimately, however, Wikipedia's most enduring dividend lies not in its total contents or godlike omniscience, but in its collaborative human process; as demonstrated at the annual Wikimania conference where editors from across the globe gather in diverse national dress, their shared mission is humble, bounded by human fallibility, and dedicated to the slow, uncertain work of mutual understanding—embodying the spirit of E Pluribus Unum.