53Swedish Sweater Johansson, who is her partner Wikipedia for seven years, and its bot computer program, responsible for writing 2,7 million articles (of the 8,5% of the total, based on Wikimedia analytics) of the online encyclopedia, are at the heart of the Wall Street Journal.
Johansson holds degrees in linguistics, civil engineering, economics and molecular biology physicss, and as for his interests he says they include "the origin of things, everything." The bulk of its entries, however, are created by the program it has created (bot), which has drawn criticism from some who feel that the use of such means is not in keeping with the spirit of the encyclopedia, as the work requires "human creativity".
"Lsjbot" searches information in databases and other digital sources, and then synthesizes them in articles. On a "good" day, according to Johansson, the program can create 10.000 new records. On Wikipedia, each registered user can create a record. Johanson finds credible databases, creates templates, and then launches the program, which searches for information and publishes it in the encyclopedia.
Bots have long been used to edit and edit articles on Wikipedia, and their operation is regulated by the so-called Bot Approvals Group.
As Johansson notes, who speaks of an "active" minority opposed to his project, his goal is to achieve "absolute democracy online." According to him, Wikipedia should at some point be able to tell everyone everything about everything. His bot, which took two months of programming to create, is, he says, a step toward achieving that goal faster—even if the entries it creates are small stubs containing only basic information. He acknowledges that Lsjbot's entries can be boring, but he sees value in them as they allow other contributors/Wikipedia members to expand on issues later, while he thinks the bot could be an inspiration for future contributors who have knowledge beyond the interests of current contributors.
