Wikipedia’s top 25 most viewed pages in 2023, released Tuesday, reflect the world’s interest in innovation in artificial intelligence, people who died this year and the growing power of Indian users to influence trends on the website.
Run by the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation, Wikipedia has received more than 84 billion page views so far in 2023, according to data the foundation shared with CNN.
Given its massive surge in popularity, the page about OpenAI’s virtual chatbot ChatGPT was the most viewed page on Wikipedia this year, amassing more than 49.4 million page views. ChatGPT set a record for the fastest-growing user base this past February, amassing 100 million active users in January. Other tech companies have poured billions into developing rival generative AI technology. Related tech companies make semiconductor chips capable of powering future AI innovations and affect geopolitical relationships between the world’s largest superpowers.
“It’s clear that people wanted to better understand the history and the context behind ChatGPT’s technology as they experimented with it,” said Anusha Alikhan, chief communications officer at the Wikimedia Foundation in an interview with CNN.
Alikhan added that ChatGPT is also trained using Wikipedia data, using Wikimedia projects to answer users’ questions or prompts. Wikipedia data and text, which is compiled by human users and editors, play a role in the responses that the chatbot produces to its users.
“Wikipedia plays an essential role in training almost every large language model,” said Alikhan.
She added that because of the foundation’s nonprofit status, they do not charge OpenAi for the use of its content. It’s also the same reason why the company doesn’t have advertisements or track users’ private information.
Joining ChatGPT in the rest of the top five were biographical posts about people who died in 2023, the 2023 Cricket World Cup, the Indian Premier League, which is a Cricket league, and the movie “Oppenheimer.”
India and Southeast Asian audiences made a big impact on 2023’s list, as a fifth of the list consisted of media from that region and the country of India itself.
“Right now we have about 4,700 active English Wikipedia volunteer editors in India,” said Alikhan. “That total puts them behind only the United States and the United Kingdom. India has… a rich media environment and information technology sector.”
Given that India is likely to overtake China as the most populated country in the world, with a population estimated to reach 1.43 billion by the end of the year according to the United Nations, its influence on global media isn’t surprising. China’s government bans Wikipedia from the country’s internet.
According to the Internet and Mobile Association of India and market data analytics firm Kantar, the number of active internet users in India is expected to grow to 900 million from 759 million currently.
The 2023 Cricket World Cup, a sport already popular in India, featured India as a runner-up to the eventual Champion Australia, with top-order batter Virat Kohli winning player of the series. The Wikipedia entry about the series drew more than 38 million page views.
Alikhan said this was the first time on record that Cricket-related articles had appeared in Wikipedia’s top 25, which the foundation has published every year since 2015.
The Indian Premier League, a Twenty20 Men’s Cricket league, appeared twice. The page for the league itself received more than 32 million views and the 2023 season receiving more than 20 million views.
The pages for two action films from India’s Bollywood, “Jawan” and “Pathaan” also made the list as some of the most-viewed pages, beating the pages for highly-grossing American films like “Barbie” and “Avatar: The Way of Water.”
Barbie, the film distributed by Warner Bros., which is owned by CNN’s parent company Warner Bros. Discovery, brought in more than $1.4 billion globally at the box office, while Oppenheimer brought in more than $950 million. However, the latter received more interest on Wikipedia.
The Oppenheimer film received more than 28 million page views, the page about real-life physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer himself received 25.6 million views while the Barbie film received 18 million.
The list was otherwise filled with influential figures in sports, entertainment and business. Taylor Swift, Elon Musk and Lionel Messi are top news-makers within their respective crafts and that showed in the number of times their pages were viewed on Wikipedia.
Swift’s music continues to dominate charts alongside the success of the Eras Tour and subsequent concert film; Musk’s constant flirtation with controversy through social media posts, public comments and business decisions; and Messi’s debut as captain for Major League Soccer club Inter Miami.
Less desirable topics and figures made the list too. Though somewhat overshadowed by news of the war in Gaza, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine saw close to 12.8 million views on Wikipedia.
Hamas’ attack on Israel, which sparked the newest chapter in a decades-long conflict, occurred later in the year, on October 7, which is likely why it didn’t make the list, compared to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine which started in February of 2022.
Last on the list was Andrew Tate, the bigoted and self-proclaimed misogynist influencer, who has been indicted of rape and human trafficking in Romania. His page received more than 12.7 million views.
Tate, who was re-platformed on X, formerly Twitter, following Musk’s ownership of the social media site, has prompted educators, police, human rights advocates and politicians to warn against his influence on youth, particularly young men.
A full list of pages, by rank and number of page views is available below.
1. ChatGPT, 49,490,406 page views
2. Deaths in 2023, 42,666,860
3. 2023 Cricket World Cup, 38,171,653
4. Indian Premier League, 32,012,810
5. Oppenheimer (film), 28,348,248
6. Cricket World Cup, 25,961,417
7. J. Robert Oppenheimer, 25,672,469
8. Jawan (film), 21,791,126
9. 2023 Indian Premier League, 20,694,974
10. Pathaan (film), 19,932,509
11. The Last of Us (TV series), 19,791,789
12. Taylor Swift, 19,418,385
13. Barbie (film), 18,051,077
14. Cristiano Ronaldo, 17,492,537
15. Lionel Messi, 16,623,630
16. Premier League, 16,604,669
17. Matthew Perry, 16,454,666
18. United States, 16,240,461
19. Elon Musk, 14,370,395
20. Avatar: The Way of Water, 14,303,116
21. India, 13,850,178
22. Lisa Marie Presley, 13,764,007
23.Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, 13,392,917
24. Russian invasion of Ukraine, 12,798,866
25. Andrew Tate, 12,728,616
