Musk’s AI firm xAI says it’s building Grokipedia, an open encyclopedia to rival Wikipedia. He said Grokipedia will be better than Wikipedia and help xAI work towards deeper knowledge. Critics have raised issues over how Wikipedia picks sources and edits its pages.
Wikipedia faces bias claims
The news followed comments from Larry Sanger, a Wikipedia co-founder who left in 2002. Sanger, talking on Tucker Carlson’s show, explained Wikipedia’s system for rating sources. He said Fox News, the Daily Caller, Breitbart News, the New York Post, and the Epoch Times get blocked or are marked “unreliable,” while sources like the New York Times, CNN, Mother Jones, and GLAAD are rated as trustworthy. Sanger noted that 85% of Wikipedia’s top editorial accounts use fake names. He called this group “Power 62.” Critics question how transparent and fair Wikipedia’s editors are.
Political voices push for changes
Momentum grew after David Sacks, Trump’s new AI and crypto chief, criticized Wikipedia online. Sacks called Wikipedia “hopelessly biased.” He said “left-wing activists” manage Wikipedia’s profiles and resist fair edits. Sacks warned that Wikipedia’s place in Google search and as an AI training source could spread bias widely. Musk replied to Sanger’s concerns and joked on X about renaming Wikipedia as “Wokipedia.” He has often challenged Wikipedia before, including offering $1 billion in 2023 to rename it “Dickipedia” for one year.
What Grokipedia will do
Grokipedia will use xAI’s Grok chatbot. Grok competes with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and powers premium services on platform X. Musk says Grok aims to “tell the truth, even if it’s controversial,” and avoids “political correctness.” The platform is planned to be open-source, public, and free from use restrictions. Musk says Grok will use machine corrections to spot mistakes, gaps, and bias in content, including what is found on Wikipedia.
Musk, in a podcast, described Grok’s process, “Grok is employing substantial amounts of inference computing to evaluate, for instance, a Wikipedia entry, determining what is accurate, partially accurate, or incorrect, and what information is lacking in that entry. It can then rewrite the page to rectify errors, eliminate falsehoods, correct misleading statements, and incorporate the missing context.”
Research on Wikipedia’s political tilt
Recent academic studies add more detail. Research by Puyu Yang and Giovanni Colavizza found that the news citations on Wikipedia average -0.5 on a scale from -2 (very liberal) to +2 (very conservative). This means Wikipedia’s sources lean from moderate to liberal, even when accounting for how trustworthy the media is. Wikipedia has pushed back on bias claims. In 2021, the site said studies show its editors have varied political stances. Leaders at Wikipedia say wider participation leads to more neutral articles over time.
Musk’s announcement comes as David Sacks, recently tapped by President Trump as White House AI and crypto chief, makes challenging Big Tech bias a priority. Trump said Sacks will “safeguard Free Speech online, and steer us away from Big Tech bias and censorship.” Sacks has flagged Wikipedia’s use in AI model training as a major bias risk.
Grokipedia is still early in development. Musk admitted Grok is trained on Wikipedia data now. He says xAI wants to remove this link by the end of the year. How independent the new platform can be is unclear. xAI has started hiring for the project, but there are no launch dates or full feature details yet.
Information control debates
The Grokipedia announcement fits into long-running arguments about who controls online facts. Some conservative groups say big tech companies and platforms routinely sideline right-leaning views. The Heritage Foundation said it will “identify and target” Wikipedia editors over supposed bias. Sanger has said Wikipedia is not just biased against conservatives, but has anti-India and anti-Hindu leanings too.
Grokipedia could challenge Wikipedia’s spot as the main online encyclopedia. Musk wants it to help tackle mainstream thinking and make information access more open. But some question if an AI system can match the judgment of human editors or if new kinds of bias will appear in its algorithms. Grok itself has faced scrutiny for giving biased and antisemitic outputs.
The project will test if AI-run encyclopedias can compete with human-edited ones. It remains to be seen if tech fixes bias better than improving editorial processes.
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