Knowledge Commons and AI Enclosure

Open knowledge can be widely reused while the communities that maintain it bear the costs. I'm interested in how this imbalance is playing out across Wikipedia, search, generative AI, and other knowledge systems.

Key References

  1. 2018 · PaperExamining Wikipedia With a Broader Lens: Quantifying the Value of Wikipedia's Relationships with Other Large-Scale Online CommunitiesACM CHI
  2. 2019 · PaperMeasuring the Importance of User-Generated Content to Search EnginesAAAI ICWSM

More work in this topic

A not-totally-exhaustive (because there’s a lot of overlap between these themes) list of “outputs” that meet this theme.

2026Jul 2026ShortpostUsing AI kind of involves interacting with other peopleData Leverage Short Posts
2026May 2026WorkshopWikiGap: Promoting Epistemic Equity by Surfacing Knowledge Gaps Between English Wikipedia and other Language EditionsWikiWorkshop 2026
2026Apr 2026BlogAI is driving the cost of polish down; some musings on fancy versus terse artifactsData Leverage
2026Feb 2026BlogThe Paradox of Reuse in 2026: A Case of Quasi-Enclosure, or "Subsidized Club Goods that Sort of Look Like Public Goods"Data Leverage
2025Jun 2025WorkshopEpistemic Authority in AI Fact-Checking: A Human and Data Centric Perspective4S 2025 Conference: Reverberations
2025May 2025ShortpostAI progress as quasi-public good productionData Leverage Short Posts
2025May 2025MediaCan Wikipedia survive the rise of AI and the age of Donald Trump?Australian Broadcasting Corporation
2025Feb 2025BlogTipping Points for Content EcosystemsData Leverage
2024Mar 2024PaperA Canary in the AI Coal Mine: American Jews May Be Disproportionately Harmed by Intellectual Property Dispossession in Large Language Model TrainingACM CHI
2024Jan 2024MediaAI is killing the grand bargain at the heart of the web. 'We're in a different world.'Business Insider
2023Oct 2023WorkshopEpistemic Injustice in Online Communities: Unpacking the Values of Knowledge Creation and Curation within CSCW ApplicationsWorkshop at CSCW
2023Jul 2023MediaWikipedia’s Moment of TruthNew York Times Magazine
2022Dec 2022BlogThe Paradox of Reuse, Language Models EditionData Leverage
2021May 2021TalkThe Importance of Wikipedia to Search Engines and Other SystemsWikipedia Research Showcase
2018Apr 2018TalkThe Critical Relationship of Volunteer-Created Wikipedia Content to Large-Scale Online CommunitiesWikipedia Research Showcase
2018Mar 2018MediaYouTube May Add to the Burdens of Humble WikipediaNew York Times