Editor Time Use Analysis
editThis is an attempt to quantify the amount of community time spent dealing with editors using generative AI (“AI”).
Each editor who posted in a discussion involving the AI is presumed to have spent 2.2 minutes per kilobyte posted by the AI, or 13.3 minutes per 1,000 words. Each editor who replied is presumed to have spent 8.33 minutes per kilobyte of reply, or 25 minutes per 1,000 words. All editors involved are presumed to have spent 5 minutes per 1,000 words reading each non-AI reply. This estimate does not include time reverting AI edits, which are presumed to be trivial.
Analysis draws from the previous two ANI archives. The oldest included post is dated February 21. In the examined 12 discussion less than a one month period, I estimate that a total of 112.5 editor hours were spent dealing with AI use. There were an average of 13.75 participants, excluding the subject, in each discussion, which contained an average of 2,679 words. This estimate does not account for any lurkers who read a thread but do not participate.
Assumptions and Methodology
editFirst, to quantify the amount of time, two assumptions will be made. First, that the average word size is about 6 bytes, and second that the average reading speed of the technical style of argumentation common to AI is 75 words per minute (WPM) (source). This is because readers are assumed to be closely scrutinizing the writing to determine if it, too was AI produced. Thus, the time taken for one editor to read an AI reply is 6 bytes / word * 75 words / minute = 450 bytes per minute, or 1,000 bytes / 1 kilobyte / (450 bytes / minute) = 2.22 minutes per kilotbyte. For this analysis, word count is used, though byte calculations are included as in some discussions, it may be easier to obtain a byte count rather than word count.
Each editor in the conversation is assumed to have read all of the AI’s replies. Thus the community time taken by a discussion is the number of involved editors (other than the AI) times the number of kilobtyes the AI contributed times 2.22 minutes per kilobyte. Each editor is also assumed to have read other responses, albeit less closely. A reading speed of 200 WPM is assumed (source). Thus the time taken for one editor to read a non-AI response is 6 bytes / word * 200 words / minute = 1,200 bytes per minute, or 1,000 bytes / kilotbyte / (1,200 bytes per minute) 0.83 minutes per kilobyte.
An editor is presumed to be involved in the discussion if they have responded. This underestimates the true participation rate, as there may be editors who have read but not responded.
Responses to the AI also take time. The time the editor spends generating the response relies on two assumptions. First, that the average writing speed is 40 WPM (). Second, that thinking through a response takes the same amount of time as typing it up. Using the 6 byte word above, we have 40 x 6 / 2 = 120 bytes per minute, or 8.33 minutes per kilobyte.
In each discussion, the amount of time spent therefore depends on the number of words by AI (“AI posts”), the number of other editors in the conversation (“other participants”), and the number of words by editors replying (“other posts”). The formula to calculate it is as follows:
# Minutes spent = Time editors spend reading + time editors spend writing = other participants x (AI posts / 75WPM + other posts / 200 WPM) + other posts / 40 WPM .
Identified discussions
editI searched through the ANI archives for cases related to LLMs. These are the results.
Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1217#Continued llm use by Bocanegris
Number of participants (excl. subject): 43
Total word count: 9,890
Word count from subject: 2,010 words
Word count by others: 2,516 words
Time spent: 3,043.6 minutes (50.7 hours)
Number if participants (excl. subject): 6
Total word count: 1,865
Word count from subject: 877
Word count by others: 988
Time spent: 124.5 minutes (2.1 hours)
Number if participants (excl. subject): 15
Total word count: 2,161
Word count from subject: 318
Word count by others: 1,843
Time spent: 248 minutes (4.1 hours)
Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1217#TrueMoriarty defending AI hallucinations
Number if participants (excl. subject): 36
Total word count: 8,985
Word count from subject: 1,942
Word count by others: 7,043
Time spent: 2376 minutes (39.6 hours)
Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1216#Personal attacks by Eakienolimited
Number if participants (excl. subject): 18
Total word count: 3,399
Word count from subject: 1,490
Word count by others: 1,909
Time spent: 577 minutes (9.6 hours)
Number if participants (excl. subject): 10
Total word count: 1,193
Word count from subject: 102
Word count by others: 1,091
Time spent: 95 minutes (1.6 hours)
Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1216#Ammiak2 continued and denied usage of LLM
Number if participants (excl. subject): 8
Total word count: 1,483
Word count from subject: 536
Word count by others: 947
Time spent: 118.8 minutes (2.0 hours)
Number if participants (excl. subject): 7
Total word count: 597
Word count from subject: 0
Word count by others: 597
Time spent: 36 minutes (0.6 hours)
Number if participants (excl. subject): 8
Total word count: 394
Word count from subject: 0
Word count by others: 394
Time spent: 26 minutes (0.4 hours)
Number if participants (excl. subject): 6
Total word count: 546
Word count from subject: 285
Word count by others: 261
Time spent: 37 minutes (0.6 hours)
Number if participants (excl. subject): 3
Total word count: 1,244
Word count from subject: 729
Word count by others: 515
Time spent: 50 minutes (0.8 hours)
Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1216#AI-run editing bot?
Number if participants (excl. subject): 5
Total word count: 393
Word count from subject: 0
Word count by others: 393
Time spent: 20 minutes (0.3 hours)
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