Elon Musk has launched an online encyclopedia named Grokipedia that he said relied on artificial intelligence and would align more with his rightwing views than Wikipedia, though many of its articles say they are based on Wikipedia itself.
Calling an AI encyclopedia “super important for civilization”, Musk had been planning the Wikipedia rival for at least a month. Grokipedia does not have human authors, unlike Wikipedia, which is written and edited by volunteers in a transparent process. Grokipedia said it is “fact-checked” by Grok, Musk’s AI chatbot.
Musk said the idea was suggested by the Trump administration’s AI and cryptocurrency czar David Sacks.
Musk has frequently attacked Wikipedia for citing reporting by the New York Times and NPR, and regularly lambasts what he calls the “mainstream media” in an effort to encourage people to rely on X, formerly Twitter, the social media site he owns and which he has programmed to encourage the domination of conservative and far-right voices, including his own.
Grokipedia’s entries appear to hew closely to conservative talking points. For example, its entry for the January 6 insurrection on the Capitol cites “widespread claims of voting irregularities” – a lie pushed by Donald Trump and his allies to delegitimize Joe Biden’s victory in 2020 – and downplays Trump’s own role in inciting the riot.
It adds that the events of January 6 have “fueled enduring disputes over its nature – ranging from a legitimate expression of grievances against perceived electoral flaws to a premeditated threat to democratic transfer of power – with mainstream accounts often amplifying casualty figures and intent beyond forensic evidence while downplaying antecedent failures in election oversight and riot containment”.
Some journalists have already accused Grokipedia of pushing inaccurate information, such as claiming that pornography made the Aids epidemic worse.
Early in Trump’s second presidency, Musk served as the head of the administration’s so-called department of government efficiency (Doge), implementing brutal staffing and budget cuts. His temporary role ended in April, and a Gallup poll released in August determined he was the most disliked public figure in the US.
