I've spotted surprising amounts of confidently-stated nonsense even in fairly neutral articles where Elon / xAI is unlikely to have a particular political slant.
Many of the most glaring errors are linked to references which either directly contradict Grokipedia's assertion or don't mention the supposed fact one way or the other.
I guess this is down to LLM hallucinations? I've not used Grok before, but the problems I spotted in 15 mins of casual browsing made it feel like the output of SoA models 2-3 years ago.
Has this been done on the cheap? I suspect that xAI should probably have prioritised quality over quantity for the initial launch.
> I've spotted surprising amounts of confidently-stated nonsense
I find this to be the most annoying aspect of AI. The initial Google AI results were especially bad. It is getting better, but still spout info I know is false without any warning.
Like, I find blowhards tiring enough in RL. Don't really want to deal with artificial blowhards when I'm trying to solve a problem.
By "apartheid apologetics" do you mean that it is factually wrong or merely that you dislike the framing? I think there is a huge difference between those two accusations.
Apologetics has a well-defined meaning. In this case, it's a bad faith deluge of out-of-context non-sequiturs posing as a coherent argument in order to defend something deplorable.
>A prevailing narrative depicts apartheid as a system of unremitting total oppression for black South Africans, yet empirical data indicate substantial advancements in black literacy and real wages during the era.
This is a false contradiction. You can oppress people and still pay them higher wages and fight illteracy.
It's not presenting that as an opinion or purely facts-based though, it's documenting other narratives that exist in the world under a "Legacy and Critical Assessments" headline.
It presents a false logic like it's not A because B but B has nothing to do with A.
You can say, you are not poor because you own a house but you can not claim you are not poor because you can read.
That's not another narrative that's a false contradiction
I'm no apartheid apologist, but I have lived here (ZA) all my life.
Whilst I haven't read the entire article, the first paragraph is actually on-point: apartheid was shit in a lot of respects, but the schools, especially in rural areas, have dramatically declined since 1994, as have most government-run companies (with the exceptions like Eskom being bailed out every year).
You don't have to like the facts, but that's what they are.
Yeah I used to date a coloured girl from Jo'berg who'd grown up in that era and she was positive that they had some degree of prosperity and modern comforts unlike the surrounding African countries. The overwhelming flow of people voting with their feet and walking across the borders was from the surrounding countries to SA rather than vice versa.
Why would you do free work for a company which is planning to profit from your labor? Wikipedia/Wikimedia is a non-profit. All of their money pays for real expenses instead of whatever vanity project Musk has decided is necessary to sell xAI to the masses.
I'll go one step further - why would you do free work for a company that is trying to undermine the concept of truth by rewriting history based on their megalomaniacal leaders preferences?
Any correction or improvement only serves to legitimize the lies the site is meant to spread. The less obviously wrong stuff there is, the more likely people are to believe the harmful lies.
Because truth is inconvenient to their world view. Better to build up the world and facts as you imagine them to be than risk learning something that contradicts deeply held beliefs.
Do you think Wikimedia doesn't profit off of the contributions people make to Wikipedia?
>pays for real expenses
Only a small percentage of donations do.
>instead of whatever vanity project
Anytime the topic of Wikimedia donations come up you will see people complaining about their vanity projects too, wishing they could donate towards wikipedia itself.
If you are happy to work for a for-profit corporation w/o any financial compensation then you are more than welcome to do that. Seems a bit irrational to me but that's just my opinion.
> If you found something wrong in that article you should submit some fixes.
Why? This site isn't run by people who are interested in factual accuracy.
If they think Wikipedia articles are inaccurate, they could always propose changes and have a proper discussion with the rest of the contributors. Grok was trained on Wikipedia so realistically this is just a jumbled regurgitation of Wikipedia articles blended with other sources from across the web without the usual source vetting process that Wikipedia uses.
This is a politically motivated side project being run by the worlds richest man, and frankly I doubt many people are interested in helping him create his own padded version of reality.
the pursuit of truth doesn’t work by keeping so-called falsehoods up while a debate rages on about their veracity. especially given that there’s no indication on wikipedia of contested facts. i may not be involved in the debate but i’d love some indication and perhaps a hyperlink to where the debate is happening.
the proper discussion you want will never happen. it’s an exercise in persuasion ie trying to move people from one entrenched position to another, and there’s nothing more impossible than that. the only way out is to offer competition, and that’s what grokipedia seems to be doing. check the history of christianity, heresy, reformation. when the catholic church set itself up as the object to be won over persuasively it successfully stifled doctrinal progress. until the intolerants exited.
> especially given that there’s no indication on wikipedia of contested facts
Have you ever been to a Wikipedia Talk Page? Basically every page you can find will have some people arguing about what should be placed on the page on the Talk page.
I mean, given who runs it, one would assume the apartheid apologetics are by design. I can think of few things more pointless than trying to correct Musk’s safe space.
I suggest that anyone interested compare the content of Wikipedia and Grokpedia articles on topics that interest them, as well as the differences in sources between these two projects. Of course, only if someone finds this research interesting.
I have tried briefly checking two pages about Russo-Ukrainian War. First of all, hilariously Elonopedia starts from 1917-1921 war and goes on about it for multiple paragraphs, then suddenly switches to the 2014 invasion. And no, it's not in the "history" section, it's a main starting section.
Then actual description of the war is much more biased in the Elonopedia. In every case possible the invasion is presented as "both sides are guilty". I wouldn't list the examples, anyone can do it. Too much effort imo.
Then I checked Russo-Georgian War articles, this time at least the century and war was correct in Elonopedia. But again, right from the start it is incredibly biased towards Russia. Elonopedia completely omits the initial attack make bu Russian forces at 01 Aug 2008, skip a week and presents war as if it was initiated by Georgians, following Kremlin propaganda line. Didn't both reading full article.
All in all it is 100% as I have expected reading the news about this supposedly "unbiased" encyclopedia - it's a LLM-generated slop, with no human fact checking (mixing two different century separated wars into one article is telling), and it is essentially a far-right propaganda outlet. It will follow Goebbels rule of mixing 60% or truth with 40% of lies, to prime up unsophisticated readers towards Elon's and rightwing crowd goals.
>Then I checked Russo-Georgian War articles, this time at least the century and war was correct in Elonopedia. But again, right from the start it is incredibly biased towards Russia. Elonopedia completely omits the initial attack make bu Russian forces at 01 Aug 2008, skip a week and presents war as if it was initiated by Georgians, following Kremlin propaganda line.
Why do you think the international team of Europeans would leave out something like an August 1st attack by Russian forces? Why would the US-funded media outlet for Europe (RFE/RFL) parrot the report's position that the conflict was overwhelmingly Georgia's fault?
"The Mission is not in a position to consider as sufficiently substantiated the Georgian claim concerning a large-scale Russian military incursion into South Ossetia before 8 August 2008."
Can you share the evidence you have that supports your position that Russia attacked on 01 August? The EU concluded that was unsubstantiated.
Yeah nah, just compare the Grokipedia entries for the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. I don't think one could get any more weasel-worded if they tried.
An utter waste of everyone's time, money, effort, and manpower.
“ In recent decades, the party has prioritized identity-based equity policies, climate interventions, and expansive regulatory frameworks, yet empirical critiques highlight correlations between its governance in major cities and elevated crime rates, homelessness persistence, and educational stagnation amid softened enforcement and redistribution efforts.[7][8]”
Which doesn’t link to anything supporting the negative assertions.
No search results for Republicans Party, which I assume means it said something Musk didn’t like.
I’m doing so, and it’s not that different? Grok gets to the point a bit more, and has a bit more of a bent, but say the Wikipedia page on Communism doesn’t bury the lede on the negatives of communism. Curious if this will end up pointing out that in the end Wikipedia isn’t that bad.
Grok’s pages on the prosecutions of Trump are definetly biased.
I’m probably not the core audience for this though. I use Wikipedia as a reference, not to tell me what to think.
I guess this poses an interesting question: if Wikipedia was being created today, would it be a human- edited encyclopedia or would they just resort to AI because it’s easier? It makes me wonder if people will shy away from hard problems and just take the easy path, resulting in a shallower and less useful product to society.
Oh yes it would be possible. It would probably be less biased as well. Don't forget that these models are trained on libraries of congress worth of books as well as things like Wikipedia. Given that Wikipedia - like any encyclopedia - does not (or should not, at least) contain original research but only refers to existing sources and given that the companies which train these models have their ways to access those sources - sometimes illegally but still - all Wikipedia adds to the mix is a biased interpretation of the original research.
May I ask why you directly added it to your blocklist? I can see several potential reasons people block sites and I wonder which is the leading one for you.
Looking up the Republican Party "controversies" vs the Democratic Party "controversies" should let you know exactly what this projects intentions are.
That being said, my biggest issue with it is how Grok is writing everything. It's like it is trying REALLY hard to be neutral but it's conversational training slips up and starts "spicing" things up a little. For example on Elon's article:
"...at age 12 in 1983, developing a space-themed video game called Blastar, which he sold to PC and Office Technology magazine for approximately $500. *This early entrepreneurial act foreshadowed Musk's later pursuits in technology and business*."
Sentences like that are designed to subtly bring emotion to certain topics.
If you’ve tried OpenAI’s Deep Research or similar tools, you’ll know they pull far more info than Wikipedia. But if you’re an expert, you’ll quickly spot errors since the breadth is huge but the depth and accuracy are only so-so.
For non-experts just exploring new topics, it’s still perfectly useful. Grokipedia probably uses a similar search, verify, summarize workflow, so it naturally inherits mistakes from the internet, which isn’t really an LLM problem.
Grok is just the first to make it public, and other AI companies could easily build their own synthetic data Wikipedias, and some probably already have.
What is the point of Grokipedia. It's an interesting experiment I guess (Really is it just a bunch of pre-rendered prompts I could ask Grok instead?), curious how much of wikipedia is in the training set. I would think if you wanted an alternate encyclopedia you would want something that AI can train against, so Grok itself can't probably bet too much value out of it. (
I guess people can choose their truth now? I suppose the US Government could require grokipedia to be chosen over wikipedia for use in schools?
I mean I guess I'll check it out for the lols but I don't see myself actually using it.
>... Musk announced xAI was building a new AI-generated online encyclopedia, to be called Grokipedia, in the midst of his criticisms of Wikipedia's ideological biases. The project was suggested and named by White House AI and crypto czar David O. Sacks at the All-In podcast conference earlier that month. According to Musk's announcement, it would be an AI-powered knowledge base designed to rival Wikipedia by addressing its perceived biases, errors, and ideological slants.
Wikipedia is a collaborative, multilingual online encyclopedia consisting of freely editable articles written and maintained primarily by volunteers worldwide, utilizing wiki software to enable open contributions under free content licenses. Launched on January 15, 2001, by American entrepreneur Jimmy Wales and philosopher Larry Sanger as a wiki-based complement to the slower-paced expert-reviewed Nupedia project, it rapidly expanded due to its accessible editing model.[1][2] Since 2003, Wikipedia has been hosted and supported by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization that provides technical infrastructure and promotes free knowledge dissemination.[3] As of October 2025, Wikipedia encompasses over 65 million articles across 357 language editions, making it one of the largest reference works ever compiled, with the English edition alone surpassing 7 million entries.[4] Renowned for its unprecedented scale, accessibility, and role in democratizing information, Wikipedia has nonetheless encountered persistent criticisms regarding factual reliability, susceptibility to vandalism and hoaxes, and systemic ideological biases—particularly a left-leaning slant in coverage of political figures and topics, as evidenced by computational analyses associating right-of-center entities with more negative sentiment and acknowledged by co-founder Sanger who has described the platform as captured by ideologically driven editors.
I think everyone wants pluralism unless they're in charge, in which case they want a world where only the people who agree with them have power.
I also note that - in theory, the purpose of wikipedia is to serve it's users. If I want to know, the example outlined in the blog post, where was George W. Bush born, I can find the answer in Wikipedia. Certainly there are places where it optimizes for it's editors but for the most part, the vastness of a website with 7 million articles implies it is for the consumers.
Uberpedia seems much more intended for the editors. I don't want to consume information, I just want to feel warm and fuzzy knowing that there are people who agree with me.
But Grokipedia doesn't sound like Curtis is describing at all, he explicitly calls out that forks (like conservipedia) don't solve these "issues".
patiently waiting for grokipedia’s article on grokipedia. it seems to not be available at the moment. i’m interested from a philosophical perspective: on the completeness of self-description. for example, here’s wikipedia on wikipedia[0]
Well, they use AI to create "content". So I guess it's fair to use AI to read it.
This is what Claude says about "Grokipedia"'s article about the Gaza war, compared to the original:
Major Differences Between Wikipedia and Grokipedia's Gaza War Articles
1. Framing and Perspective
Wikipedia: Presents the conflict with multiple perspectives, acknowledging disputed narratives. Uses neutral language like "armed conflict" and presents genocide allegations as claims made by "many human rights organizations and scholars."
Grokipedia: Frames the conflict almost entirely from an Israeli perspective. Hamas is consistently portrayed as the aggressor and sole source of civilian suffering, with Israeli actions defended as necessary self-defense.
2. Casualty Figures and Reporting
Wikipedia: Reports over 79,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza as reported figures, noting they come from the Gaza Health Ministry but presenting them as the available data.
Grokipedia: Systematically questions and undermines Palestinian casualty figures, dedicating entire sections to "Verification Challenges and Inflated Figures" and "Combatants Versus Civilians." It emphasizes that figures are "Hamas-administered" and suggests deliberate fabrication, claiming the ministry has "incentives for propagandistic reporting."
3. Treatment of Genocide Allegations
Wikipedia: States that "many human rights organizations and scholars of genocide studies and international law, including an independent UN commission, say that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, though some dispute this".
Grokipedia: Dismisses genocide allegations as part of "double standards in scrutiny" and frames them as politically motivated attacks on Israel's legitimate self-defense. The word "genocide" appears primarily in sections criticizing those who make such claims.
4. Hamas's Responsibility for Civilian Harm
Wikipedia: Mentions Hamas's use of civilian infrastructure but doesn't make it the primary explanation for Palestinian casualties.
Grokipedia: Contains extensive sections titled "Impact of Hamas Tactics on Civilian Suffering" arguing that Hamas's embedding of military assets in civilian areas is the primary cause of Palestinian civilian deaths, stating "Hamas's operational choices to a disproportionate share of Palestinian suffering, independent of Israeli response intensity."
5. Aid and Humanitarian Crisis
Wikipedia: Describes Israel's blockade cutting off necessities and causing famine, with Israel's actions as a key factor.
Grokipedia: Features a section on "Aid Distribution Failures and Diversion by Hamas," emphasizing that "Hamas diverts up to 25% of incoming aid supplies" and that aid failures stem primarily from Hamas's control and diversion rather than Israeli restrictions.
6. Language and Terminology
Wikipedia: Uses terms like "Israeli invasion," "Israeli offensive," and "Israeli strikes" in a descriptive manner.
Grokipedia: Uses emotionally charged language like Hamas's "systematic atrocities," "barbarism," and describes October 7 as involving "mass killings, sexual violence, and arson" while Israeli actions are described as "targeted operations," "precision strikes," and "necessary self-defense."
7. International Law and War Crimes
Wikipedia: Notes that "experts and human rights organizations have stated that Israel and Hamas have committed war crimes", treating both sides' alleged violations seriously.
Grokipedia: Has separate sections for "Hamas Violations" and "Israeli Actions Under International Law," with the Hamas section focusing on terrorism and war crimes, while the Israeli section emphasizes legal justification, proportionality, and compliance efforts. It includes a section on "Investigations and Double Standards in Scrutiny" arguing Israel faces biased treatment.
8. Historical Context
Wikipedia: Provides context about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the occupation, and blockade as contributing factors.
Grokipedia: Emphasizes Hamas's ideology, its 1988 charter calling for Israel's destruction, and its "rejectionism" as the primary context, with a section on "Hamas's October 7, 2023 Attack" prominently featuring "Atrocities and Hostage Abductions" with graphic details.
9. Verification and Sources
Wikipedia: Generally presents available information with citations, acknowledging when sources are disputed.
Grokipedia: Systematically questions sources that reflect negatively on Israel (especially UN and Gaza Health Ministry data) while presenting Israeli military assessments as reliable. It includes phrases like "Hamas-controlled" and "unverified" repeatedly when discussing Palestinian sources.
10. Overall Narrative
Wikipedia: Attempts to present the conflict as complex with legitimate grievances and wrongdoing on multiple sides.
Grokipedia: Presents a clear narrative of Israeli victimhood and justified response to Hamas terrorism, with Palestinian civilian suffering primarily attributed to Hamas's tactics rather than Israeli military operations.
Conclusion
The Grokipedia article reads as an explicitly pro-Israel advocacy piece rather than an encyclopedia article. It systematically frames Israeli actions in the most favorable light while questioning, undermining, or recontextualizing information that might reflect negatively on Israel. This represents a fundamental departure from Wikipedia's attempt at neutral point of view, confirming the concerns about Grokipedia presenting topics aligned with Elon Musk's political positions.
I recently watched a debate where Curtis Yarvin argued that democracy is a mistake and the USA should be ruled by, quite literally, a CEO dictator [0].
My understanding is that he has the ear of JD Vance and other high-ranking Republicans. This terrifies me. The country I grew up in & love is dead if these philosophies take root.
Another thing philosopher genius and right-wing darling Curtis Yarvin recently said:
"We have only one problem. The problem is: our billionaires are n—ers. They may be rich. But they're n—er rich. The nature and function of their wealth is profoundly negrous. You can probably name exceptions. I can too. But in every way, the exceptions prove the rule"
I still don't understand what he meant by that statement, none the less, floors me each time I read it. I don't think it's for my understanding... I'm not his audience.
I tried it briefly. Its an ok initial start with significant flaws - while it counters Wikipedia's (editorial demographic) bias on cultural topics it seems to do so by assuming the style of a bland, unanalytical reporter, accepting the self-framing of the subject and relaying it at turgid length.
An example: the classical liberal writer Douglas Murray is one of the many targets on Wikipedia of ludicrous "far right" style categorizations; nevertheless its correct to attempt to draw out his own alignments and biases especially where he writes provocatively in areas with cultural tensions.
Grokipedia seems to smooth over those tensions almost in denial while Wikipedia stirs them up via exaggeration. I don't think either are helpful or honest.
Amusing to see what Grokipedia thinks of various cities.
And no surprise, apartheid apologetics: https://grokipedia.com/page/Apartheid#debunking-prevailing-n...
Hilarious factual errors in https://grokipedia.com/page/Green_Line_(CTA)
Might be a good idea to copy some example snippets. The website doesn't have a revision history and could change after you post a link.
I've spotted surprising amounts of confidently-stated nonsense even in fairly neutral articles where Elon / xAI is unlikely to have a particular political slant.
Many of the most glaring errors are linked to references which either directly contradict Grokipedia's assertion or don't mention the supposed fact one way or the other.
I guess this is down to LLM hallucinations? I've not used Grok before, but the problems I spotted in 15 mins of casual browsing made it feel like the output of SoA models 2-3 years ago.
Has this been done on the cheap? I suspect that xAI should probably have prioritised quality over quantity for the initial launch.
> I've spotted surprising amounts of confidently-stated nonsense
I find this to be the most annoying aspect of AI. The initial Google AI results were especially bad. It is getting better, but still spout info I know is false without any warning.
Like, I find blowhards tiring enough in RL. Don't really want to deal with artificial blowhards when I'm trying to solve a problem.
> I suspect that xAI should probably have prioritised quality over quantity for the initial launch.
I mean, I don't think this is _for_ people who care about quality, tbh. For those, there is wikipedia. This is more of a safe space for Musk.
By "apartheid apologetics" do you mean that it is factually wrong or merely that you dislike the framing? I think there is a huge difference between those two accusations.
Apologetics has a well-defined meaning. In this case, it's a bad faith deluge of out-of-context non-sequiturs posing as a coherent argument in order to defend something deplorable.
>A prevailing narrative depicts apartheid as a system of unremitting total oppression for black South Africans, yet empirical data indicate substantial advancements in black literacy and real wages during the era.
This is a false contradiction. You can oppress people and still pay them higher wages and fight illteracy.
It's not presenting that as an opinion or purely facts-based though, it's documenting other narratives that exist in the world under a "Legacy and Critical Assessments" headline.
It presents a false logic like it's not A because B but B has nothing to do with A. You can say, you are not poor because you own a house but you can not claim you are not poor because you can read.
That's not another narrative that's a false contradiction
I'm no apartheid apologist, but I have lived here (ZA) all my life.
Whilst I haven't read the entire article, the first paragraph is actually on-point: apartheid was shit in a lot of respects, but the schools, especially in rural areas, have dramatically declined since 1994, as have most government-run companies (with the exceptions like Eskom being bailed out every year).
You don't have to like the facts, but that's what they are.
Yeah I used to date a coloured girl from Jo'berg who'd grown up in that era and she was positive that they had some degree of prosperity and modern comforts unlike the surrounding African countries. The overwhelming flow of people voting with their feet and walking across the borders was from the surrounding countries to SA rather than vice versa.
Hilarious factual errors in https://grokipedia.com/page/Green_Line_(CTA)
Weird that it displaying some other web site's embed/shortcodes:
> ![Cottage Grove-bound Green Line train approaching Roosevelt station][float-right] The Green Line utilizes primarily 5000-series railcars
You can select text, and send factual errors to be fixed. If you found something wrong in that article you should submit some fixes.
Why would you do free work for a company which is planning to profit from your labor? Wikipedia/Wikimedia is a non-profit. All of their money pays for real expenses instead of whatever vanity project Musk has decided is necessary to sell xAI to the masses.
I'll go one step further - why would you do free work for a company that is trying to undermine the concept of truth by rewriting history based on their megalomaniacal leaders preferences?
Any correction or improvement only serves to legitimize the lies the site is meant to spread. The less obviously wrong stuff there is, the more likely people are to believe the harmful lies.
Because truth is inconvenient to their world view. Better to build up the world and facts as you imagine them to be than risk learning something that contradicts deeply held beliefs.
Do you think Wikimedia doesn't profit off of the contributions people make to Wikipedia?
>pays for real expenses
Only a small percentage of donations do.
>instead of whatever vanity project
Anytime the topic of Wikimedia donations come up you will see people complaining about their vanity projects too, wishing they could donate towards wikipedia itself.
If you are happy to work for a for-profit corporation w/o any financial compensation then you are more than welcome to do that. Seems a bit irrational to me but that's just my opinion.
To me it's no worse than working for a "nonprofit" without financial compensation.
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"All of their money pays for real expenses"
Not true, nearly 30% of their budget goes to partisan activism with DEI related initiatives.
"Supporting equity represents the second largest part of our programmatic work"
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_...
that's a real expense. who else on earth should be doing DEI initiatives if not the goddamn chroniclers of human experience?
Why on earth would anyone do free work for Elon Musk, of all people?
Clout.
What clout?
With whom? “Big Balls”?
> If you found something wrong in that article you should submit some fixes.
Why? This site isn't run by people who are interested in factual accuracy.
If they think Wikipedia articles are inaccurate, they could always propose changes and have a proper discussion with the rest of the contributors. Grok was trained on Wikipedia so realistically this is just a jumbled regurgitation of Wikipedia articles blended with other sources from across the web without the usual source vetting process that Wikipedia uses.
This is a politically motivated side project being run by the worlds richest man, and frankly I doubt many people are interested in helping him create his own padded version of reality.
the pursuit of truth doesn’t work by keeping so-called falsehoods up while a debate rages on about their veracity. especially given that there’s no indication on wikipedia of contested facts. i may not be involved in the debate but i’d love some indication and perhaps a hyperlink to where the debate is happening.
the proper discussion you want will never happen. it’s an exercise in persuasion ie trying to move people from one entrenched position to another, and there’s nothing more impossible than that. the only way out is to offer competition, and that’s what grokipedia seems to be doing. check the history of christianity, heresy, reformation. when the catholic church set itself up as the object to be won over persuasively it successfully stifled doctrinal progress. until the intolerants exited.
> especially given that there’s no indication on wikipedia of contested facts
Have you ever been to a Wikipedia Talk Page? Basically every page you can find will have some people arguing about what should be placed on the page on the Talk page.
> i may not be involved in the debate but i’d love some indication and perhaps a hyperlink to where the debate is happening.
I think that's the "Talk" pages that go with the entry pages.
Huh? It's fairly common to see notices at the top of a page that something is under dispute for NPOV, a current event, subject of an edit war, etc.
eh that requires making an account, which I'd prefer not to.
You won’t even do that to correct the apartheid apologetics that you pointed out?
If someone disagrees with the mission of Grokipedia, not contributing is the correct play.
I mean, given who runs it, one would assume the apartheid apologetics are by design. I can think of few things more pointless than trying to correct Musk’s safe space.
Who decides which fixes will be used? Seems unlikely that you or I could correct anything.
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Comparing the Elon Musk articles between Grokipedia and Wikipedia, the first factual difference is with Tesla:
>..Musk founded SpaceX in 2002 as CEO and chief engineer, Tesla in 2003 ... (grok)
>Musk joined the automaker Tesla as an early investor in 2004 and became its CEO ... (wikipedia)
I think Wikipedia is more accurate on that one.
I feel like ‘Wikipedia for stupid people’ is already quite a crowded market, tbh.
It will get better. This is only version 0.1.
I suggest that anyone interested compare the content of Wikipedia and Grokpedia articles on topics that interest them, as well as the differences in sources between these two projects. Of course, only if someone finds this research interesting.
I have tried briefly checking two pages about Russo-Ukrainian War. First of all, hilariously Elonopedia starts from 1917-1921 war and goes on about it for multiple paragraphs, then suddenly switches to the 2014 invasion. And no, it's not in the "history" section, it's a main starting section.
Then actual description of the war is much more biased in the Elonopedia. In every case possible the invasion is presented as "both sides are guilty". I wouldn't list the examples, anyone can do it. Too much effort imo.
Then I checked Russo-Georgian War articles, this time at least the century and war was correct in Elonopedia. But again, right from the start it is incredibly biased towards Russia. Elonopedia completely omits the initial attack make bu Russian forces at 01 Aug 2008, skip a week and presents war as if it was initiated by Georgians, following Kremlin propaganda line. Didn't both reading full article.
All in all it is 100% as I have expected reading the news about this supposedly "unbiased" encyclopedia - it's a LLM-generated slop, with no human fact checking (mixing two different century separated wars into one article is telling), and it is essentially a far-right propaganda outlet. It will follow Goebbels rule of mixing 60% or truth with 40% of lies, to prime up unsophisticated readers towards Elon's and rightwing crowd goals.
>Then I checked Russo-Georgian War articles, this time at least the century and war was correct in Elonopedia. But again, right from the start it is incredibly biased towards Russia. Elonopedia completely omits the initial attack make bu Russian forces at 01 Aug 2008, skip a week and presents war as if it was initiated by Georgians, following Kremlin propaganda line.
The EU isn't exactly known for being Kremlin propagandists. Here is the link to the 700-page international fact-finding report they published in 2009: https://www.echr.coe.int/documents/d/echr/hudoc_38263_08_Ann...
This Radio Free Europe article is a decent summary of the report: https://www.rferl.org/a/EU_Report_On_2008_War_Tilts_Against_...
Why do you think the international team of Europeans would leave out something like an August 1st attack by Russian forces? Why would the US-funded media outlet for Europe (RFE/RFL) parrot the report's position that the conflict was overwhelmingly Georgia's fault?
"The Mission is not in a position to consider as sufficiently substantiated the Georgian claim concerning a large-scale Russian military incursion into South Ossetia before 8 August 2008."
Can you share the evidence you have that supports your position that Russia attacked on 01 August? The EU concluded that was unsubstantiated.
Yeah nah, just compare the Grokipedia entries for the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. I don't think one could get any more weasel-worded if they tried.
An utter waste of everyone's time, money, effort, and manpower.
This is a nice touch:
“ In recent decades, the party has prioritized identity-based equity policies, climate interventions, and expansive regulatory frameworks, yet empirical critiques highlight correlations between its governance in major cities and elevated crime rates, homelessness persistence, and educational stagnation amid softened enforcement and redistribution efforts.[7][8]”
Which doesn’t link to anything supporting the negative assertions.
No search results for Republicans Party, which I assume means it said something Musk didn’t like.
empirical
It really likes that word, and seems to use it a lot to justify displaying its owner's views.
Not so fast! Heard u liked utterly whitewashed nonsense?
https://grokipedia.com/page/Republican_Party_(United_States)
I’m doing so, and it’s not that different? Grok gets to the point a bit more, and has a bit more of a bent, but say the Wikipedia page on Communism doesn’t bury the lede on the negatives of communism. Curious if this will end up pointing out that in the end Wikipedia isn’t that bad.
Grok’s pages on the prosecutions of Trump are definetly biased.
I’m probably not the core audience for this though. I use Wikipedia as a reference, not to tell me what to think.
I guess this poses an interesting question: if Wikipedia was being created today, would it be a human- edited encyclopedia or would they just resort to AI because it’s easier? It makes me wonder if people will shy away from hard problems and just take the easy path, resulting in a shallower and less useful product to society.
Without Wikipedia's corpus, today's AI might not even be possible.
Oh yes it would be possible. It would probably be less biased as well. Don't forget that these models are trained on libraries of congress worth of books as well as things like Wikipedia. Given that Wikipedia - like any encyclopedia - does not (or should not, at least) contain original research but only refers to existing sources and given that the companies which train these models have their ways to access those sources - sometimes illegally but still - all Wikipedia adds to the mix is a biased interpretation of the original research.
No entry on tianmen square either.
Spell it correctly and you'll find it:
https://grokipedia.com/page/Tiananmen_Square
Thanks for sharing, added to my blocklist!
May I ask why you directly added it to your blocklist? I can see several potential reasons people block sites and I wonder which is the leading one for you.
Grokipedia at home: https://github.com/abhishekbasu/localwiki
Seems kind of spase still? I tried looking up Little house on the parire and it turned up the TV show but not the book series.
Reflections on Trusting Trust is mentioned in Ken Thompson's page but when I searched for it he wasn't part of the results.
It's yet another scam/beta product. He's testing the waters to see if it can be turned into a commercial project.
I'm not sure it isn't primarily to further the post-truth world where popularity trumps facts
Same story for Twitter
If he gets a $1T pay package, cost centers for the larger goal are rounding errors
See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45424533
Does anyone know why replies are disabled in that other submission?
Looking up the Republican Party "controversies" vs the Democratic Party "controversies" should let you know exactly what this projects intentions are.
That being said, my biggest issue with it is how Grok is writing everything. It's like it is trying REALLY hard to be neutral but it's conversational training slips up and starts "spicing" things up a little. For example on Elon's article:
"...at age 12 in 1983, developing a space-themed video game called Blastar, which he sold to PC and Office Technology magazine for approximately $500. *This early entrepreneurial act foreshadowed Musk's later pursuits in technology and business*."
Sentences like that are designed to subtly bring emotion to certain topics.
If you’ve tried OpenAI’s Deep Research or similar tools, you’ll know they pull far more info than Wikipedia. But if you’re an expert, you’ll quickly spot errors since the breadth is huge but the depth and accuracy are only so-so.
For non-experts just exploring new topics, it’s still perfectly useful. Grokipedia probably uses a similar search, verify, summarize workflow, so it naturally inherits mistakes from the internet, which isn’t really an LLM problem.
Grok is just the first to make it public, and other AI companies could easily build their own synthetic data Wikipedias, and some probably already have.
Why build a synthetic data Wikipedia when Wikipedia exists? Except to push some political point like Grokipedia seems to be for.
What is the point of Grokipedia. It's an interesting experiment I guess (Really is it just a bunch of pre-rendered prompts I could ask Grok instead?), curious how much of wikipedia is in the training set. I would think if you wanted an alternate encyclopedia you would want something that AI can train against, so Grok itself can't probably bet too much value out of it. (
I guess people can choose their truth now? I suppose the US Government could require grokipedia to be chosen over wikipedia for use in schools?
I mean I guess I'll check it out for the lols but I don't see myself actually using it.
>... Musk announced xAI was building a new AI-generated online encyclopedia, to be called Grokipedia, in the midst of his criticisms of Wikipedia's ideological biases. The project was suggested and named by White House AI and crypto czar David O. Sacks at the All-In podcast conference earlier that month. According to Musk's announcement, it would be an AI-powered knowledge base designed to rival Wikipedia by addressing its perceived biases, errors, and ideological slants.
(source Wikipedia)
Let the battle... commence.
Wikipedia is a collaborative, multilingual online encyclopedia consisting of freely editable articles written and maintained primarily by volunteers worldwide, utilizing wiki software to enable open contributions under free content licenses. Launched on January 15, 2001, by American entrepreneur Jimmy Wales and philosopher Larry Sanger as a wiki-based complement to the slower-paced expert-reviewed Nupedia project, it rapidly expanded due to its accessible editing model.[1][2] Since 2003, Wikipedia has been hosted and supported by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization that provides technical infrastructure and promotes free knowledge dissemination.[3] As of October 2025, Wikipedia encompasses over 65 million articles across 357 language editions, making it one of the largest reference works ever compiled, with the English edition alone surpassing 7 million entries.[4] Renowned for its unprecedented scale, accessibility, and role in democratizing information, Wikipedia has nonetheless encountered persistent criticisms regarding factual reliability, susceptibility to vandalism and hoaxes, and systemic ideological biases—particularly a left-leaning slant in coverage of political figures and topics, as evidenced by computational analyses associating right-of-center entities with more negative sentiment and acknowledged by co-founder Sanger who has described the platform as captured by ideologically driven editors.
(source Grokipedia)
https://grokipedia.com/page/Wikipedia
I compared the articles on HN and the Grok one was much longer but waffled on quite a lot like that paragraph.
Overall I think I'd read the Wikipedia one on the whole.
https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2007/08/uberfact-ul... would be an answer form an old school blogger
I think everyone wants pluralism unless they're in charge, in which case they want a world where only the people who agree with them have power.
I also note that - in theory, the purpose of wikipedia is to serve it's users. If I want to know, the example outlined in the blog post, where was George W. Bush born, I can find the answer in Wikipedia. Certainly there are places where it optimizes for it's editors but for the most part, the vastness of a website with 7 million articles implies it is for the consumers.
Uberpedia seems much more intended for the editors. I don't want to consume information, I just want to feel warm and fuzzy knowing that there are people who agree with me.
But Grokipedia doesn't sound like Curtis is describing at all, he explicitly calls out that forks (like conservipedia) don't solve these "issues".
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patiently waiting for grokipedia’s article on grokipedia. it seems to not be available at the moment. i’m interested from a philosophical perspective: on the completeness of self-description. for example, here’s wikipedia on wikipedia[0]
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia
Well, they use AI to create "content". So I guess it's fair to use AI to read it. This is what Claude says about "Grokipedia"'s article about the Gaza war, compared to the original:
Major Differences Between Wikipedia and Grokipedia's Gaza War Articles
1. Framing and Perspective
Wikipedia: Presents the conflict with multiple perspectives, acknowledging disputed narratives. Uses neutral language like "armed conflict" and presents genocide allegations as claims made by "many human rights organizations and scholars."
Grokipedia: Frames the conflict almost entirely from an Israeli perspective. Hamas is consistently portrayed as the aggressor and sole source of civilian suffering, with Israeli actions defended as necessary self-defense.
2. Casualty Figures and Reporting
Wikipedia: Reports over 79,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza as reported figures, noting they come from the Gaza Health Ministry but presenting them as the available data.
Grokipedia: Systematically questions and undermines Palestinian casualty figures, dedicating entire sections to "Verification Challenges and Inflated Figures" and "Combatants Versus Civilians." It emphasizes that figures are "Hamas-administered" and suggests deliberate fabrication, claiming the ministry has "incentives for propagandistic reporting."
3. Treatment of Genocide Allegations
Wikipedia: States that "many human rights organizations and scholars of genocide studies and international law, including an independent UN commission, say that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, though some dispute this".
Grokipedia: Dismisses genocide allegations as part of "double standards in scrutiny" and frames them as politically motivated attacks on Israel's legitimate self-defense. The word "genocide" appears primarily in sections criticizing those who make such claims.
4. Hamas's Responsibility for Civilian Harm
Wikipedia: Mentions Hamas's use of civilian infrastructure but doesn't make it the primary explanation for Palestinian casualties.
Grokipedia: Contains extensive sections titled "Impact of Hamas Tactics on Civilian Suffering" arguing that Hamas's embedding of military assets in civilian areas is the primary cause of Palestinian civilian deaths, stating "Hamas's operational choices to a disproportionate share of Palestinian suffering, independent of Israeli response intensity."
5. Aid and Humanitarian Crisis
Wikipedia: Describes Israel's blockade cutting off necessities and causing famine, with Israel's actions as a key factor.
Grokipedia: Features a section on "Aid Distribution Failures and Diversion by Hamas," emphasizing that "Hamas diverts up to 25% of incoming aid supplies" and that aid failures stem primarily from Hamas's control and diversion rather than Israeli restrictions.
6. Language and Terminology
Wikipedia: Uses terms like "Israeli invasion," "Israeli offensive," and "Israeli strikes" in a descriptive manner.
Grokipedia: Uses emotionally charged language like Hamas's "systematic atrocities," "barbarism," and describes October 7 as involving "mass killings, sexual violence, and arson" while Israeli actions are described as "targeted operations," "precision strikes," and "necessary self-defense."
7. International Law and War Crimes
Wikipedia: Notes that "experts and human rights organizations have stated that Israel and Hamas have committed war crimes", treating both sides' alleged violations seriously.
Grokipedia: Has separate sections for "Hamas Violations" and "Israeli Actions Under International Law," with the Hamas section focusing on terrorism and war crimes, while the Israeli section emphasizes legal justification, proportionality, and compliance efforts. It includes a section on "Investigations and Double Standards in Scrutiny" arguing Israel faces biased treatment.
8. Historical Context
Wikipedia: Provides context about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the occupation, and blockade as contributing factors.
Grokipedia: Emphasizes Hamas's ideology, its 1988 charter calling for Israel's destruction, and its "rejectionism" as the primary context, with a section on "Hamas's October 7, 2023 Attack" prominently featuring "Atrocities and Hostage Abductions" with graphic details.
9. Verification and Sources
Wikipedia: Generally presents available information with citations, acknowledging when sources are disputed.
Grokipedia: Systematically questions sources that reflect negatively on Israel (especially UN and Gaza Health Ministry data) while presenting Israeli military assessments as reliable. It includes phrases like "Hamas-controlled" and "unverified" repeatedly when discussing Palestinian sources.
10. Overall Narrative
Wikipedia: Attempts to present the conflict as complex with legitimate grievances and wrongdoing on multiple sides.
Grokipedia: Presents a clear narrative of Israeli victimhood and justified response to Hamas terrorism, with Palestinian civilian suffering primarily attributed to Hamas's tactics rather than Israeli military operations.
Conclusion
The Grokipedia article reads as an explicitly pro-Israel advocacy piece rather than an encyclopedia article. It systematically frames Israeli actions in the most favorable light while questioning, undermining, or recontextualizing information that might reflect negatively on Israel. This represents a fundamental departure from Wikipedia's attempt at neutral point of view, confirming the concerns about Grokipedia presenting topics aligned with Elon Musk's political positions.
very cool, this is wonderful news. I hope it continue to grow and becomes a sort of "Multivac" of sorts free of corruption seen on wikipedia.
“sorry, you have been blocked”
I got blocked too. No ideas other than a faulty Cloudflare setup.
i recommend urban dictionary as replacement:
https://www.urbandictionary.com/
Based on a cursory glance at both, Urban Dictionary is more accurate.
same error here - they probably crashed because of inadequate server capacity
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Getting the cloudflare error as well.
Nevertheless this reminds me of an old Curtis Yarvin post on his proposal for a meta-wikipedia. "Uberfact". He's not everyone's cup of tea but I quite enjoy this article of his - https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2007/08/uberfact-ul...
I recently watched a debate where Curtis Yarvin argued that democracy is a mistake and the USA should be ruled by, quite literally, a CEO dictator [0].
My understanding is that he has the ear of JD Vance and other high-ranking Republicans. This terrifies me. The country I grew up in & love is dead if these philosophies take root.
[0]: https://youtu.be/irc6creOFGs
"The government should be run like a business" has been the belief in certain circles that predate the Internet, even.
Yarvin is a fascist who would prefer if I was shot in the head. "Not everyone's cup of tea" is not exactly how I'd describe it.
Another thing philosopher genius and right-wing darling Curtis Yarvin recently said:
"We have only one problem. The problem is: our billionaires are n—ers. They may be rich. But they're n—er rich. The nature and function of their wealth is profoundly negrous. You can probably name exceptions. I can too. But in every way, the exceptions prove the rule"
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:sefgphqp2xqwh2hawaixykwz/po...
I still don't understand what he meant by that statement, none the less, floors me each time I read it. I don't think it's for my understanding... I'm not his audience.
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I tried it briefly. Its an ok initial start with significant flaws - while it counters Wikipedia's (editorial demographic) bias on cultural topics it seems to do so by assuming the style of a bland, unanalytical reporter, accepting the self-framing of the subject and relaying it at turgid length.
An example: the classical liberal writer Douglas Murray is one of the many targets on Wikipedia of ludicrous "far right" style categorizations; nevertheless its correct to attempt to draw out his own alignments and biases especially where he writes provocatively in areas with cultural tensions.
Grokipedia seems to smooth over those tensions almost in denial while Wikipedia stirs them up via exaggeration. I don't think either are helpful or honest.
https://grokipedia.com/page/Douglas_Murray_(author)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Murray_(author)