Grokipedia is an online encyclopedia, entirely populated and maintained by xAI’s Grok chatbot.
Grokipedia is said to have copied text directly from Wikipedia for several articles
Photo Credit: Grokipedia
Elon Musk's latest project is an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered online encyclopedia that is focused on “truth.” Dubbed Grokipedia, the encyclopedia's version 0.1 went live on Monday as a website, allowing users to visit and search for articles. The billionaire has been touting Grokipedia for the last month, claiming that Wikipedia is ineffective and contains “propaganda”. Notably, Musk's open-source alternative does not let human users edit information or add context or sources at this point, and everything is maintained directly by Grok.
In a post on X (formerly known as Twitter), Musk announced the launch of the Grokipedia platform, calling the current iteration version 0.1. “Version 1.0 will be 10X better, but even at 0.1 it's better than Wikipedia imo,” he added.
The billionaire entrepreneur also mentioned in a separate post that the platform is fully open-source and can be used by anyone without any cost incurred. This is likely to challenge Wikipedia's current position, which also operates on a similar model, and is widely used by third-party websites, apps, and AI chatbots such as Grok (Musk has said that Grok will soon stop referencing Wikipedia).
Grokipedia, currently, is a bare bones website with the homepage showing nothing but a large search bar where users can type a topic to read articles about it. At present, there are 8,85,000 articles uploaded, which cover major global topics. Unlike Wikipedia, users cannot edit or alter the content, but can request Grok to modify the article.
Despite being launched just hours ago, Grokipedia has already begun facing criticism. The Verge claimed that information in several articles on Grokipedia has been taken from Wikipedia. In some cases, the information has reportedly been rewritten, while in others it has been copied and pasted directly. The pages where Grok takes data from its rival, it adds a message saying, “The content is adapted from Wikipedia.”
Lauren Dickinson, a Wikimedia Foundation spokesperson, told The Verge, “Wikipedia's strengths are clear: it has transparent policies, rigorous volunteer oversight, and a strong culture of continuous improvement[..]This human-created knowledge is what AI companies rely on to generate content; even Grokipedia needs Wikipedia to exist.”
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