The AI Gold Rush Is Eating Its Own

Part of the ongoing Big Tech's War on Users series. Let's start with Wikipedia, because the irony is almost too perfect to pass up. In mid-May, the Wikimedia Foundation fired Brooke Vibber — the lead developer of MediaWiki since 2003, the first full-time employee the Foundation ever hired, and their first Chief Technical Officer. Over twenty years of institutional knowledge, walked out the door. A week later, on May 21st, they disbanded the entire Community Tech team — five engineers and a manager. That team's entire job was to build things the volunteer editor community actually asked for through an official channel called the Community Wishlist. The one team at the Wikimedia Foundation whose product owner was, in effect, the volunteers who built the thing. Most of the people fired were union organizers. Within hours, editors were signing a solidarity petition and threatening an editorial strike. The Wikipedia Signpost confirmed the disbanding the same day. It's apparently the first…