Elon Musk’s latest venture, GrokPedia, went live yesterday under his company xAI. The site, powered by Musk’s Grok AI model, aims to become an online encyclopedia that rivals Wikipedia. According to Business Insider, the site launched with 885,279 articles but briefly went offline due to technical problems. It returned later the same day.
Visitors to GrokPedia.com find a dark-themed homepage with a single search bar and font styling similar to both Wikipedia and the Grok chatbot. The landing page labels itself as “version v0.1,” suggesting an early-stage release. For comparison, Wikipedia lists over 7,081,705 English-language articles, according to its own website.
The content is managed and fact-checked by AI rather than edited by users. Those wishing to correct an entry must submit changes through a form, which are then reviewed by the system. Each entry features subheadings and citations, resembling Wikipedia’s familiar structure.
Where Does The Information Come From?
Much of GrokPedia’s content originates from Wikipedia itself, actually. The Washington Post and Business Insider both confirmed that many of the pages were adapted under Wikipedia’s Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. This licence allows reuse of text as long as the original authors are credited.
Lauren Dickinson, a spokesperson for the Wikimedia Foundation, said that “Wikipedia’s knowledge is – and always will be – human. Through open collaboration and consensus, people from all backgrounds build a neutral, living record of human understanding… even GrokPedia needs Wikipedia to exist.”
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Some entries on GrokPedia appear nearly identical to their Wikipedia counterparts, though the linking format is simpler. A few have already been found to contain content that differs from Wikipedia’s consensus view. This has made many wonder how accurate the AI’s version of history or science may be when automated judgement replaces human debate.
Why Did Musk Create It?
Musk has accused Wikipedia of holding a left-wing bias for years. According to reports collected in Wikipedia, Business Insider and Grokipedia’s own background materials, Musk believes that Wikipedia gives unfair treatment to conservative viewpoints and relies too heavily on liberal-leaning sources.
In 2019, he called his own Wikipedia page a “war zone with a zillion edits” on X, then known as Twitter. Earlier this year, he told followers to “defund Wikipedia until balance is restored.” In September, Musk said that GrokPedia would be a “massive improvement over Wikipedia” and described it as a “necessary step towards the xAI goal of understanding the Universe.”
The project is in line with Musk’s pattern of building alternatives to mainstream platforms he views as politically slanted. His companies have previously taken on the likes of OpenAI, Google and Meta through ventures such as xAI and X. Larry Sanger, one of Wikipedia’s cofounders, has interestingly enough voiced support for GrokPedia’s creation.
How Different Is It From Wikipedia?
While Wikipedia depends on volunteers to edit and discuss entries, GrokPedia limits public editing. Users can only suggest corrections rather than make direct changes. This system is said to reduce misinformation but may slow updates to fast-changing topics.
As of now, GrokPedia lists under 900,000 entries which is roughly an eighth of Wikipedia’s English total. Musk has said that the encyclopedia’s AI will grow its database quickly, though the project is still in early testing.
