Elon Musk is the darling of ultraconservative neoliberalism. With his aura of eccentric genius, he provokes and ignites debate, but his role is not to entertain, but to reprogram power. Grokipedia is not a toy or a directionless experiment. It is an ambitious ideological project, catapulted by technological supremacy, with the objective of conquering and automating the narrative. Musk is the visible face of an elite, and Grokipedia is the icon of a system that disguises the dominance of knowledge. The manifest enemy to combat is Wikipedia, for all that it represents.
The key difference lies in governance: who makes the decisions about which articles are created (and which are not), as well as the processes of editing, validation, and correction. In the case of Grokipedia, the answer to all questions is Grok (the language model). In the case of Wikipedia, the answer always lies in the community. It is precisely this collective and distributed construction that allows diverse and marginalized realities, such as Catalan, to emerge. It is surely the noblest example of what Tim Berners-Lee dreamed of when he invented the World Wide Web more than three decades ago. Grokipedia, on the other hand, was born to erase human collaboration and, with it, consensus. It is a clear example of socially irresponsible artificial intelligence. It violates all principles: from fairness to transparency, without any human intervention at any stage of the process.
If Wikipedia thrives on the collective, distributed, and dynamic construction of meaning, Grokipedia connects with the seven deadly sins in AI form. It stems from the pride of possessing absolute and infallible truth. It is not knowledge or wisdom: it is mathematical arrogance. Grokipedia aims to be brilliant and convincing: it does not seek facts, but rather an aesthetic of moral truth, a seductive, lustful verisimilitude. Musk understands freedom of expression as his right to impose his sexist, supremacist, and ultraliberal ideological framework. To eliminate dissent through anger at contradiction. His thirst for volume is the greed that breaks the mold of critical thinking. Up to this point, we've seen examples where he devours information without digesting it, churning out endless texts without processing them. Humanity bothers him, and so does diversity. In a way, he wants to imitate us until we become expendable. The two remaining sins, envy and sloth, should make us question what role we want to play in this. It's possible that, despite understanding the challenge, the power of Grokipedia, coupled with Musk's apparent infallibility, will generate both admiration and frustration. This combination is precisely the breeding ground for envy. We think especially of teenagers who might see themselves reflected in figures like this: we cannot allow them to become role models. Finally, let's not delegate judgment, or even memory, to him out of laziness. Doubt is our resistance; conformity is surrender. Let us doubt and question everything, now, always, and every day.
