[SATIRE]

SAN FRANCISCO — Wikipedia sent a formal request to AI companies this week. The message was simple: please pay us. The nonprofit says tech giants used its articles to build trillion-dollar products for free.

Executives at major AI firms expressed confusion. They assumed all human knowledge was a gift to their shareholders. "We were under the impression that ‘nonprofit’ meant ‘free for us to take’," said Walter Jensen, VP of Knowledge Harvesting at a leading AI lab. "We scraped the entire history of the world. It took a long time. Asking us to pay for it now feels like a hidden fee. It is very unfair to our investors."

The AI models rely on Wikipedia to sound smart. Without it, chatbots would mostly recite Reddit comments. Yet, the companies are hesitant to open their wallets. They have offered alternatives to cash. One company offered to pay Wikipedia in "exposure." Another offered free cloud credits that expire in thirty days.

"Our business model assumes raw materials cost zero dollars," explained Sarah Wu, Chief Revenue Optimization Officer. "If we have to pay for the truth, our margins collapse. We prefer a partnership where we take the data and they get the honor of helping us." Wu noted that their AI can now summarize Wikipedia articles. She argued this saves users the trouble of visiting the actual site. "In a way, we are doing them a favor," she added.

At press time, Wikipedia updated the entry for "Generative AI." It now simply reads: "A very expensive tape recorder."

Inspired by Wikipedia to AI Companies: Pay Up.