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Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia founder on the site turning 25 and what that means for technology · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talk sed B.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
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  Speaker 2: Free online encyclopedia. Wikipedia hit a big milestone this week,
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  Speaker 2: celebrating its twenty fifth anniversary. Launching on the fifteenth of
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  Speaker 2: January two thousand and one, Wikipedia was founded on a
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  Speaker 2: model of trust and look. While it's credibility and reliability
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  Speaker 2: were questioned in the early days, the site is now
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  Speaker 2: massive and a globally trusted source of facts. Throughout the journey,
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  Speaker 2: Wikipedia founder and Internet entrepreneur Jimmy Wales has learned a
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  Speaker 2: thing or two about trust. He's used his experience to
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  Speaker 2: write a book. It's called The Seven Rules of Trust,
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  Speaker 2: and Jimmy Wales joins me from the UK.
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  Speaker 3: Now, good morning, Jimmy, good morning.
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  Speaker 2: Do you mind if we start with the success of Wikipedia.
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  Speaker 2: Has it turned out how you expected when you began it?
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  Speaker 4: Well, you know, I always say I'm a pathological optimist.
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  Speaker 4: I always think everything's going to be great, and it's
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  Speaker 4: turned out to be great, and so yeah, I think
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  Speaker 4: in that sense it has. Obviously there's multiple ways answer
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  Speaker 4: the question. I certainly never really thought that would be
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  Speaker 4: something that's viewed by over two billion devices every month.
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  Speaker 4: So that's just really incredible to be part of the infrastructure.
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  Speaker 3: Of the world in that way.
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  Speaker 4: But in terms of you know, the encyclopedia, it's kind
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  Speaker 4: of what I imagined.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, why has it worked?
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  Speaker 4: I think it's worked because a lot of different reasons,
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  Speaker 4: And I think the one of the main reasons is.
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  Speaker 3: Because we have a purpose.
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  Speaker 4: We have a very simple purpose, which is a free, neutral,
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  Speaker 4: high quality encyclopedia for every single person on the planet.
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  Speaker 4: And that simple purpose has always been at the heart
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  Speaker 4: of everything we do, and it's something that it inspires people.
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  Speaker 3: It motivates people. People are like, yeah, that sounds great,
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  Speaker 3: like that's something that should exist.
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  Speaker 4: And it also defines what we do, you know, in
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  Speaker 4: terms of the rules and how do we operate and
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  Speaker 4: how do we think about things. So I think that's
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  Speaker 4: been really helpful in the success of Wikipedia.
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  Speaker 2: Did you always trust the process and and you know,
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  Speaker 2: the open source model or were there moments of worry
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  Speaker 2: and difficulty within it?
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  Speaker 4: Well, I mean I say yeah, largely. I mean certainly
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  Speaker 4: in the very very early days when I just first
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  Speaker 4: opened the wiki and you know, we started editing, and
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  Speaker 4: at that time this was an outgrowth of the previous project,
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  Speaker 4: new Pedia, same vision, free encyclopedia. But I didn't know
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  Speaker 4: about wiki, and you know, it was very top down
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  Speaker 4: and all of that, and I thought this could work.
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  Speaker 4: But I did wake up a few times in the
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  Speaker 4: middle of the night and go downstairs and jump on
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  Speaker 4: my computer and make sure everything was okay, because anybody
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  Speaker 4: could have come in the early days and trashed the
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  Speaker 4: whole site. But quickly I realized like, oh, there's this
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  Speaker 4: there's this guy in Australia, and when I'm asleep, he's
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  Speaker 4: awake and actually he's looking after the site and that's amazing.
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  Speaker 2: So yeah, in the early days of the Internet, there
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  Speaker 2: was so much possibility and positivity. Wikipedia is one part
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  Speaker 2: of it which has retained its purpose and its positivity
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  Speaker 2: and its possibility. But what were you a bit naive?
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  Speaker 2: Do you think to think that that combination of tech
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  Speaker 2: and human nature wouldn't go a little bit dark?
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  Speaker 3: I don't know.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, I think it's important to remember that even
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  Speaker 4: before social media and even before algorithms, there was something
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  Speaker 4: called usenet, even before the World Wide Web, and usedet
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  Speaker 4: was this giant, unmoderated message board that was super duper
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  Speaker 4: toxic and kind of horrible.
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  Speaker 3: So it's easy to think back and go, ah, those.
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  Speaker 4: Beautiful early days, you know, But actually people can be
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  Speaker 4: horrible to each other and people can be great to
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  Speaker 4: each other, and that's always with us. And so you know,
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  Speaker 4: I have still that great optimism for the future. And
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  Speaker 4: you know, I think AI is a huge opportunity for
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  Speaker 4: humanity and huge risk and all of these things, you know,
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  Speaker 4: But yeah, I just think people can come together and
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  Speaker 4: be kind to each other and build something of value.
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  Speaker 2: Interesting you mentioned AI, and of course this book on
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  Speaker 2: trust that you've written. Do you think that AI could
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  Speaker 2: potentially like you know, I know a lot of people
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  Speaker 2: who are struggling to trust AI at this particular stage.
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  Speaker 2: Do you think it will be challenging for trust?
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  Speaker 4: I think it will be challenging, And you know, part
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  Speaker 4: of the reason for writing the book is to kind
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  Speaker 4: of put trust on the agenda and have people talk
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  Speaker 4: about trust and think more consciously about trust.
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  Speaker 3: I mean.
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  Speaker 4: One of the problems with AI is it hallucinates quite
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  Speaker 4: a lot, I mean makes stuff up. I mean, you know,
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  Speaker 4: if you dig deep, you know when you first use it.
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  Speaker 4: I think for most people, the first time you ask
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  Speaker 4: a question and you have a little chat with it,
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  Speaker 4: you're like, oh my god, this is unbelievable, Like computers
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  Speaker 4: can talk now, amazing. But then when you dig a
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  Speaker 4: little deeper, you find actually, I think for most of us,
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  Speaker 4: the really surprising thing about the Verry first DAYI is like,
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  Speaker 4: it's really good at brainstorming and it's really bad at facts,
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  Speaker 4: which is kind of the opposite of what we would
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  Speaker 4: have thought. You would have thought, oh, it's going to
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  Speaker 4: be super robotic and factual, and it's going to be
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  Speaker 4: really not creative, and it's like, no, it's actually very creative.
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  Speaker 4: It's so creative it just makes stuff up randomly. But
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  Speaker 4: for the purpose of trusting it, I think that's problematic.
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  Speaker 4: And I think it's good if people have a healthy
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  Speaker 4: amount of distrust here at this present time, because it
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  Speaker 4: can definitely mislead you.
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  Speaker 2: But you remain optimistic about it, and in the book
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  Speaker 2: even talk about how it could potentially help Wikipedia.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, definitely, and not really I'm not thinking they're of
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  Speaker 4: letting AI write Wikipedia entries. It's very far from being
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  Speaker 4: able to do that, but you know, kind of do
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  Speaker 4: things like suggest a source or you know, or look
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  Speaker 4: through the existing sources for an article and say, oh,
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  Speaker 4: here's a fact that could be in Wikipedia but isn't,
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  Speaker 4: and if it could be in that helper role and
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  Speaker 4: we find that useful, yeah, that could be really great.
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  Speaker 2: Wikipedia has sort of remained this force for good, hasn't it.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, what we see with it is that we
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  Speaker 2: can actually have discussions and arguments in a very civil manner,
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  Speaker 2: and sometimes we don't see that in other parts of
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  Speaker 2: the Internet. And you talk about that in the book,
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  Speaker 2: this need to remember that, you know, we can all
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  Speaker 2: get along with a bit of civility.
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  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, no that that chapter is titled your
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  Speaker 4: mother was Right, And it's sort of like what do
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  Speaker 4: we teach children. We teach, you know, you should be
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  Speaker 4: nice to other people, and also we acknowledge humanity when
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  Speaker 4: we're when we're teaching children, we're like, Okay, if you've
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  Speaker 4: got mad and you screamed as someone you should appogize,
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  Speaker 4: like that's normal and that's human and it happens.
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  Speaker 3: But now you've got to and that.
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  Speaker 4: It's very practical to be civil to other people in
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  Speaker 4: terms of getting anything done in the world. And so yeah,
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  Speaker 4: I am optimistic about it, and I'm actually you know,
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  Speaker 4: I because I am such a ridiculous optimist, you know,
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  Speaker 4: I know I see the good side in things, but like,
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  Speaker 4: you know, I discuss this community and read it called
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  Speaker 4: change my View, where people post like, oh, here's my
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  Speaker 4: view that's potentially controversial in some topic, change my mind,
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  Speaker 4: and other people, even if they agree, they might post say, oh,
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  Speaker 4: well here's the best arguments I've heard on the other side,
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  Speaker 4: and so on, and then at the end people go, oh,
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  Speaker 4: you change my mind or you didn't, or.
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  Speaker 3: Whatever it might be. And I love that. I'm like, oh, like,
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  Speaker 3: this is great.
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  Speaker 4: You know that people come together in goodwill and say, oh,
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  Speaker 4: let's chew on some ideas and let's think about it.
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  Speaker 3: And you know, I think most of us have this.
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  Speaker 4: We see this in our personal lives, certainly in work
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  Speaker 4: situations where people are reasonable and kind and there's a
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  Speaker 4: few jerks around.
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  Speaker 3: That's always a case. But what you know, we deal
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  Speaker 3: with that.
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  Speaker 4: And it's only when we spend too much time on
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  Speaker 4: toxic social media that we can.
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  Speaker 3: You can come to a really dark view of other people.
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  Speaker 4: And you're like, wow, like the general public is full
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  Speaker 4: of very angry, crazy people. No, it really isn't like
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  Speaker 4: they're the same nice people you bumped into in an elevator.
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  Speaker 3: But social media is.
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  Speaker 4: Amplifying the worst elements and that's really not okay.
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  Speaker 2: You speak in the book about assuming good faith, which
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  Speaker 2: seems something really simple, but it's really resonated with me,
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  Speaker 2: something that we should be thinking about in our day
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  Speaker 2: to day lives all the time, because I don't think
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  Speaker 2: we do that so much as you send the book.
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  Speaker 2: We assume bad faith of people.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I think I think in general it's
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  Speaker 4: a good back. You know, in most cases to assume
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  Speaker 4: good faith.
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  Speaker 3: Obviously you've got.
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  Speaker 4: To have some limits around that, and you know, if
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  Speaker 4: somebody violates your trust, then there's got to be consequences,
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  Speaker 4: and you're you know, you're going to say, maybe I'm
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  Speaker 4: not going to trust that person in the future, or
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  Speaker 4: they're gonna have to do something and back the trust.
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  Speaker 4: But probably, you know, when we first meet people or
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  Speaker 4: we interact, we do tend to trust them, and we
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  Speaker 4: should because you know, people are pretty much okay.
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  Speaker 3: You know.
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  Speaker 4: I like to give my example of you know, if
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  Speaker 4: you go into a restaurant and there are people sitting
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  Speaker 4: all around you with knives because they're gonna.
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  Speaker 3: Eat steak, or whatever. It's a steakhouse.
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  Speaker 4: You don't immediately think, oh my god, they're about to
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  Speaker 4: stab me, you know. And if you do, like you're like, oh,
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  Speaker 4: actually I have an anxiety problem and I probably need
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  Speaker 4: to see somebody about this.
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  Speaker 3: I need to work on that because we know, like I,
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  Speaker 3: basically all these people around some of them are going
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  Speaker 3: to be annoying and all that, but they're not going
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  Speaker 3: to stab me, you know.
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  Speaker 4: So we do assume good faith in lots of context.
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  Speaker 4: But we just need to remember that and to build
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  Speaker 4: on that and grow good, positive communities around that kind
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  Speaker 4: of thing rather than.
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  Speaker 3: Get sucked into a cycle of toxic despair.
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  Speaker 2: Why is trust important, especially at the moment, because it
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  Speaker 2: does feel like we are trusting least. I think trust
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  Speaker 2: in institutions and politicians and journalists and the like is declining.
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  Speaker 2: It hasn't happened over night. It has been happening for
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  Speaker 2: a while, hasn't it.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's been going on for quite a long time.
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  Speaker 3: You know.
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  Speaker 4: The Edelman Trust Barometer survey, which is a multinational survey
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  Speaker 4: of attitudes about trust, has been going I think since
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  Speaker 4: two thousand and so. It's documented a declined to trust. But
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  Speaker 4: it was even earlier than that when we were seeing
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  Speaker 4: some signs of it. And I think the reason it's
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  Speaker 4: really important is if we lose trust in journalism, lose
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  Speaker 4: trust in information, then we're a little bit of drift.
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  Speaker 3: And you know, I.
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  Speaker 4: Recommend in the book that people in a position to
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  Speaker 4: think about trusts in news organizations need to prioritize it.
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  Speaker 4: It's to say, like, oh, we have lost the trust
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  Speaker 4: of the public in lots of ways.
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  Speaker 3: What are the things we can do to start to
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  Speaker 3: rebuild that.
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  Speaker 4: And the good news is, you know, I interviewed Francis
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  Speaker 4: Fry in the book, who's an academic at Harvard who.
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  Speaker 3: Also has business experiences.
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  Speaker 4: She went into Uber to help them through a trust
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  Speaker 4: and one of the things she told me is people
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  Speaker 4: always say, oh, once you've lost trust, that's it, you're
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  Speaker 4: never getting it back. But realistically that's not true. Realistically
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  Speaker 4: there are things you can do to rebuild trust. And
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  Speaker 4: so even organizations that have screwed up, whether it's journalism, business, whatever,
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  Speaker 4: they can take these steps, these practical steps to say, here's.
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  Speaker 3: What we need to do to begin to rebuild trust.
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  Speaker 4: It's things like transparency, it's things like be trusting it's
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  Speaker 4: you know, all of these things are really important.
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  Speaker 2: You talk about how leaders can play a role in
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  Speaker 2: creating the culture of a company or even a country,
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  Speaker 2: and then the way that they deal with people, and
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  Speaker 2: it kind of comes back to the conversation we're having
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  Speaker 2: about civility. If you look at politics in particular at
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  Speaker 2: the moment in the UIs and and other places around
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  Speaker 2: the world, are you concerned about how sort of the
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  Speaker 2: behavior and the lack of civility can can influence an impact.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it's very distressing to see. You know,
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  Speaker 4: in the US, they've just been through the longest ever
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  Speaker 4: government shut down because the two sides couldn't come to
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  Speaker 4: some very basic agreements about some budgetary matters. And a
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  Speaker 4: big part of the reason is they don't trust each
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  Speaker 4: other enough to sort of have a bit of give
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  Speaker 4: and take of like, Okay, we're going to give you
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  Speaker 4: this this year, but next year we're going to expect that.
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  Speaker 4: And you know, that sort of working relationship instead becomes
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  Speaker 4: super toxic and they're just trying to sabotage each other,
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  Speaker 4: and that's not good governance. I mean, I think I
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  Speaker 4: think it doesn't matter what your politics are in terms
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  Speaker 4: of you know where you think the country should be headed,
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  Speaker 4: you definitely should probably say, actually, that's a complete breakdown
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  Speaker 4: of the basic functions of democracy. That's not okay, Like
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  Speaker 4: you need to sort of do the things. I don't know,
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  Speaker 4: they all need to go to group therapy sessions together.
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  Speaker 3: Or something, you know.
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  Speaker 4: But and then, of course, the other, the other element
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  Speaker 4: is when we see the undermining of trust in science,
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  Speaker 4: trust in facts, then you get the rise of demagogues
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  Speaker 4: campaigning for things that have no basis in reality because
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  Speaker 4: it makes people feel good or because they're responding to
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  Speaker 4: their more base fears and all of that. That's obviously
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  Speaker 4: going to be a problem as well, and not not
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  Speaker 4: helpful in any way.
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  Speaker 2: You can build the trust, but then you got to
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  Speaker 2: keep the trust, don't you.
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  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, And it's always it's an ongoing process.
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  Speaker 4: And certainly, you know, one of the things I talk
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  Speaker 4: a lot about in the Wikipedia context is we have
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  Speaker 4: to earn the trust again and again and again, and
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  Speaker 4: we have to earn it in some cases by saying, yeah,
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  Speaker 4: you know what, we got this wrong. We actually need
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  Speaker 4: to re examine how we did this because it's not right.
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  Speaker 4: And you know, I think if you do that people
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  Speaker 4: are willing to say, give you the benefit of the doubt.
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  Speaker 4: They're willing to say, Okay, right, they screwed up, you
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  Speaker 4: know this company, really they mucked up that they released
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  Speaker 4: a product that was terrible and then they stonewalled about it.
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  Speaker 4: But they changed the seat is usually what has to happen.
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  Speaker 4: And now they're beginning to rebuild trust. They're behaving in
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  Speaker 4: a proper way, and they sort of are giving refunds
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  Speaker 4: and they're doing whatever they need to do.
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  Speaker 3: And I think it's really important.
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  Speaker 2: Twenty five years is very impressive. Where do you see
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  Speaker 2: Wikipedia in the next twenty five years?
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  Speaker 3: Oh, you know, it's a really good question. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: certainly we're at this.
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  Speaker 4: Real change point in technology with the rise of AI.
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  Speaker 4: It's gonna have all kind of very difficult to predict.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, you can read the predictions all over the board,
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  Speaker 4: you know, like oh, we're gonna have mass unemployment, and
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  Speaker 4: then you see like, no, we're gonna have mass well
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  Speaker 4: for everyone, and okay, like that's so I'm not gonna
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  Speaker 4: try and predict.
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  Speaker 3: That's that's too hard. I think for Wikipedia, you.
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  Speaker 4: Know, I think we should stay as we are. You know,
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  Speaker 4: we're not gonna become TikTok or chat to BT. You know,
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  Speaker 4: we're in encyclopedia. We're a bunch of geeks writing this
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  Speaker 4: because we enjoy it and we love sharing it with
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  Speaker 4: the world, and it's what people want from us.
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  Speaker 3: So I hope we stay kind of the same.
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  Speaker 2: Stick to the purpose.
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  Speaker 3: Stick to the purpose is very simple.
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  Speaker 2: Jimmy Welles, it's been lovely to talk to you this morning.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for your time.
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  Speaker 3: Brilliant thank you.
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  Speaker 2: That was Wikipedia founder Jimmy Welles's book, The Seven Rules
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: of Trust is in stores now.
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