Musk begins siege of Wikipedia and launches Grok-based encyclopedia

BarcelonaA punch to the internet from the world's richest man. After actively and passively criticizing Wikipedia, Elon Musk is embarking on his most decisive move yet to offer the world an alternative tool to replace it as the world's leading source of free information. This is Grokipedia, a tool based on his artificial intelligence system, Grok, which is being launched this Tuesday with the aim of offering direct competition to the collaborative and open service created by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger in 2001. "Grokipedia.com version 0.1 is now available. 0.1 is already better than Wikipedia, in my opinion," Musk stated from his profile on the X network, which he owns.

However, his enthusiasm isn't shared by everyone. Several users responded with tests in which they specifically asked Grok to find errors and inaccuracies in a Grokipedia article, and the AI found a good handful. Another user shared a screenshot asking about "Israeli crimes," without being offered any specific answers. And there are also those who claim that some of the articles are copied verbatim from Wikipedia. It currently has 885,000 entries, which we have to believe will grow rapidly, as the website feeds on all the information circulating through X and, by extension, through Grok. To use it, you must go to Grokipedia.com and enter a search term in the search bar. The result it offers has a look quite similar to Wikipedia, structured with chapters and references, although for the moment it does not yet integrate images or multimedia elements.

Since buying X, Musk has attacked Wikipedia for being left-biased and since October 2024 has been promoting a boycott to strip it of funds (Wikipedia is funded by anonymous donations). It is therefore to be expected that this new tool will have biases that reflect his involvement in the public arena, where he has often championed far-right positions. In fact, his own page on Wikipedia describes him thus: "His unfiltered style, which includes mockery of private matters and instant opinions, stands in stark contrast to the traditional prudence of CEOs, positioning him as a billionaire meme lord who uses social media to gain influence beyond business."

Despite the aesthetic similarities, the big difference between Wikipedia and Grokipedia is that the former relies on user edits and therefore relies on the community as a tool to find consensus when there are discrepancies, while Musk's tool offers opaque and unalterable results, making it much more manipulable. Furthermore, Wikipedia is maintained by a non-profit entity, while Grokipedia is a private initiative of the richest man on the planet.