Wikipedia earlier this month released its list of the25 most viewed articles on English Wikipedia in 2023.

As always, it’s a good sign of the times.

There’s a lot of what you’d expect on the list.

The Barbie movie is on there (No.

13, with 18 million views).

Taylor Swift, unsurprisingly, made the cut at No.

12 (19.4 million views).

Movies, soccer players, celebrities who passed away too young, all made it.

(Matthew Perry is at No.

17 with 16.4 million views, and Lisa Marie Presley is at No.

22 with 13.7 million.)

1 most-viewed article, with a whopping 49.4 million views?

Hence the enshrinement atop Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia and hugely popular resource.

Wikipedia received more than 84 billion page views so far in 2023, according todata shared with CNN.

From zero to No.

1 in one year

ChatGPT came on fast.

But last year’s list also didn’t include any artificial intelligence-related entries.

The entry on ChatGPT isn’t the longest in Wikipedia.

But it’s complex, with 210 footnotes cited.

That fundamental training of ChatGPT isn’t without controversy.

They’re a starting place.

Wikipedia, however, is assembled by human editors, and cites its sources.

Sometimes Wikipedia entries have errors, whether unintentional or on purpose.

But Wikipedia does a very good job of pulling together basics and telling you how to find out more.

On a good day, that’s what ChatGPT does too.

Need to send a sensitive email to your boss or mother-in-law?

When I was in school, we had old-fashioned, multivolume, paper-and-ink encyclopedias.

And you better believe teachers put hard limits on their use as reference sources.

Many teachers have similar rules for Wikipedia.

Not for, uh, having AI write essaysfor school assignmentsthat they pass off as their own work.

That number’s likely to grow.

Many people are afraid AI will eventually take their jobs, and others have larger fears involving human obsolescence.

It was in our songs, our books, our movies.

Shall we play a game?

How aboutglobal thermonuclear war?

Noah asked Altman aboutworries that genAI will cause the apocalypse.

Altman’s answer wasn’t exactly reassuring to worrywarts like me.

Thanks, I think?

Wikipedia, of course, may not offer the most nuanced explanation of ChatGPT or AI.

But I’m strongly on the side of it hitting No.

1 on the Wikipedia list.

Where will AI be next year?

In much the same way, we just have no idea where ChatGPT will be in a year.

Its answer was both telling and vague, as you might expect.

“I wish I had a crystal ball for that!”

“Predicting the future is a bit tricky, especially when it comes to internet trends.

What’s your prediction?”