Elon Musk's Grokipedia Takes Aim at Wikipedia, But Can AI Really Tell the Whole Truth?

Elon Musk has reignited the battle for online knowledge; this time with Grokipedia. The Tesla owner sees this as an AI-driven encyclopedia designed to rival Wikipedia's dominance.

Launched by his company xAI on Monday, Grokipedia promises a fact-first, bias-free platform that challenges what Musk calls Wikipedia's "ideological bias."

Grokipedia vs. Wikipedia

The initial version, Grokipedia 0.1, already contains over 885,000 articles, a huge head start over Wikipedia's more than seven million English articles. Musk is nevertheless optimistic that his site will catch up quickly with its competitor. He declared that the upcoming Grokipedia 1.0 will be "10X better" and "already better than Wikipedia.

This is the mission given by Musk: the simplicity and ambition of the mission are concise:

"The goal of Grok and Grokipedia.com is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. We will never be perfect, but we shall nonetheless strive toward that goal."

Delayed Launch With a Purpose

Originally set for late September, Grokipedia's launch was delayed to "clean out the propaganda," Musk tweeted on X. His post mirrors his longtime criticism of Wikipedia, which he frequently criticized as being controlled by "far-left activists."

In 2024, Musk requested people to avoid donating to Wikipedia, claiming that the website's editorial power was "extremely left-biased." In August, he re-emphasized that Wikipedia is not a good source for Community Notes as its editorial power affected neutrality.

However, he offered to donate $1 billion to Wikipedia in 2023 just for a name change.

AI at the Heart of Grokipedia's Content

Unlike Wikipedia, which relies on human volunteers and open editing, Grokipedia is powered by generative AI, specifically, xAI's conversational assistant Grok. The platform uses artificial intelligence to produce and refine content in real time.

A Grokipedia entry about Musk highlights his influence on "technological progress, demographic decline, and institutional biases, often via X," while noting "criticism from legacy media outlets that exhibit systemic left-leaning tilts in coverage."

While anyone can edit Wikipedia articles, Musk hasn't said how much humans are involved when it comes to Grokipedia articles, per CNN.