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Elon Musk plans to take on Wikipedia with his own rival encyclopedia site.
On Tuesday, the Tesla CEO tweeted that his xAI startup is building Grokipedia, which he claims will be a “massive improvement” over Wikipedia. Musk has long had a gripe with Wikipedia, accusing it of being “woke” and even calling for it to be defunded. (The encyclopedia site has long relied on donations.) In January, Musk also railed at Wikipedia for adding an entry about him allegedly making a Nazi-like salute at a Trump inauguration event.
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To create Grokipedia, Musk plans on tapping xAI’s Grok chatbot (which he also created as an alternative to another technology he didn’t like, ChatGPT). Grok has been trained on web data, including public tweets. In a podcast earlier this month, Musk suggested that Grok is smart enough not only to replicate the work of human community volunteers who maintain and update Wikipedia, but also to account for any bias or inaccuracies.
“Grok is using heavy amounts of inference compute to look at, as an example, a Wikipedia page, what is true, partially true, or false, or missing in this page,” he said. “Now rewrite the page to correct, remove the falsehoods, correct the half-truths, and add the missing context.” (That said, Grok has suffered its own share of problems, including praising Hitler.)
Musk’s Tuesday tweet didn’t say when Grokipedia would launch. But it’ll likely attract an audience of Musk supporters and right-wing pundits who also claim Wikipedia has a liberal bias.
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Wikipedia has faced internal conflicts among community editors over how certain events are portrayed. However, Musk’s critics, including Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, argue that the free online encyclopedia has focused on accuracy, whereas Musk’s X has faced accusations that it’s a hub of misinformation. In 2023, Wales also criticized the changes that Musk made to Twitter after acquiring it, saying the platform had become “overrun by trolls and lunatics.”
Beating Wikipedia won’t be easy; the free online encyclopedia is the seventh most-visited website in the world. Still, Musk is betting he can disrupt the status quo. Last month, the billionaire also tweeted his plan to take on Microsoft by creating a new business called “Macrohard” dedicated to releasing rival software products with the help of AI.
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About Our Expert
Michael Kan
Senior Reporter
Experience
I’ve been a journalist for over 15 years. I got my start as a schools and cities reporter in Kansas City and joined PCMag in 2017, where I cover satellite internet services, cybersecurity, PC hardware, and more. I’m currently based in San Francisco, but previously spent over five years in China, covering the country’s technology sector.
Since 2020, I’ve covered the launch and explosive growth of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service, writing 600+ stories on availability and feature launches, but also the regulatory battles over the expansion of satellite constellations, fights with rival providers like AST SpaceMobile and Amazon, and the effort to expand into satellite-based mobile service. I’ve combed through FCC filings for the latest news and driven to remote corners of California to test Starlink’s cellular service.
I also cover cyber threats, from ransomware gangs to the emergence of AI-based malware. Earlier this year, the FTC forced Avast to pay consumers $16.5 million for secretly harvesting and selling their personal information to third-party clients, as revealed in my joint investigation with Motherboard.
I also cover the PC graphics card market. Pandemic-era shortages led me to camp out in front of a Best Buy to get an RTX 3000. I’m now following how President Trump’s tariffs will affect the industry. I’m always eager to learn more, so please jump in the comments with feedback and send me tips.
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