Grokipedia has become a fact. Elon Musk launched his alternative to Wikipedia. The richest man in the world consistently creates a parallel information and media ecosystem, tailored to his own vision of reality. Is Grokipedia really free from false narratives and contains only dry facts?
Grokipedia, or Grok writes an encyclopedia
Grokipedia is powered by Grokam, an artificial intelligence created by Musk’s xAI company. The website is modeled on the minimalist style of Wikipedia – a similar page structure, link system, even visual layout. However, it is much smaller: just over 800,000. articles compared to over 7 million on Wikipedia. Well, let’s face it – Wikipedia was created for almost two decades.
The key difference? Wikipedia is created thanks to the work of thousands of volunteers around the world. Grokipedia is authoritarian in this respect. The human role remains ambiguous, as users can only report potential errors via a feedback form.
The goal of Grok and Grokipedia.com is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. We will never be perfect, but we will strive towards that goal
– wrote Musk on the X platform. He added that he wants to send copies of Grokipedia “etched in stable oxide to orbit, the Moon and Mars to preserve them for the future.”
Battle for narrative
Conservatives have been accusing Wikipedia of leftist involvement for years. Musk himself claims that it is “controlled by far-left activists.” Grokipedia is supposed to be the answer to this (as it claims) problem.
Users quickly noticed the striking differences between the two encyclopedias. It started with an article about… Musk himself. Funnily enough, during the tests, I also first compared the article about Musk on Wiki and Grokipedia.
Wikipedia describes him as a “polarizing figure” who has been criticized for “unscientific and misleading statements, including disinformation about COVID-19, promoting conspiracy theories, and endorsing anti-Semitic, racist and transphobic comments.” The article also mentions an increase in “hate speech and disinformation” after the takeover of Twitter in 2022 (currently October).
Grokipedia? Here, Musk “influenced broader debates about technological progress, demographic decline and institutional bias.” In the context of the Twitter purchase, we read that he “prioritized content moderation reforms in the face of criticism from traditional media with a systemic leftist tilt.” Interestingly, the source was the Forbes Billionaires Ranking – not a specific article or document supporting these claims.
Controversy and extremely polarizing topics
Even more controversial are the differences in the article about George Floyd, whose death while in custody in 2020 sparked a wave of protests against police brutality and racism.
Grokipedia begins by saying that Floyd was “an American with a long criminal record, including convictions for armed robbery, drug possession and theft” – events dating back years before his death. Wikipedia begins by stating that he was “a man murdered by a white policeman.” The Grokipedia entry focuses on drugs in Floyd’s system, although the medical examiner listed the cause of death as homicide.
Moreover, Grokipedia claims that the protests following Floyd’s death were “riots causing billions of dollars in property damage.” The source was an obituary on the Texas Historical Society website – which, however, states nothing of the sort.
When journalists asked xAI for comment on these discrepancies, the automatic response was: “Traditional media is lying.”
Can AI be objective?
Musk assures that Grokipedia will be constantly updated.
As Grok grows, Grokipedia will grow. We build the principles of critical thinking and consistency into Grok
– he wrote on Tuesday on X.
Although Grokipedia has been received with extremely polarized opinions, the fact is that Grok himself will strive to be objective. Example? The last quarrel on the X website between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, his nemesis in the artificial intelligence industry. During the argument, Altman asked Grok if he confirmed that Musk manipulated Portal X for the benefit of his own businesses, including, of course, Tesla.
Grok was able to confirm that Twitter’s algorithms were indeed changed in Musk’s favor after he took over the website, which clearly confirmed that Grok did not self-censor. At least not to such an extent as to effectively refute all the arguments thrown against the owner of portal X.
Will Grokipedia really be “the truth, the truth and nothing but the truth” on the Internet increasingly flooded with fake news and deep fakes? The current version of Grokpedia is only an early beta, so its operation may change.
