Nika

Do you think Grokipedia has a real chance to succeed and surpass Wikipedia?

Elon Musk was extremely frustrated that Wikipedia couldn’t be manipulated, and he even offered $1 billion if they renamed it to “d*ckipedia.”

Since that didn’t work out, he’s now trying to build his own platform for gathering information – claiming that Wikipedia is “hopelessly biased,” and that left-leaning editors influence its content.

Do you think creating Grokipedia makes sense, especially considering how much Elon Musk seems to want control over information? What's your opinion on this?

I've heard that a lot of people turn to Grok for information, and I personally use Grok, but I don't really like the person behind it, who has quite strange opinions and a way of expressing himself.

598 views

Add a comment

Replies

Best
Felix Sattler

First of all: I don’t think it EVER makes sense for a single person to control an information library that’s meant to be used by everyone. How topics are shown and positioned shouldn’t depend on one individual’s perspective.

That said, the potential impact of Grokipedia will likely depend a lot on who supports and promotes it. With figures like Trump and his followers backing it, it could find a highly receptive audience, which makes it an interesting experiment in targeted information platforms.

Nika

@felix_sattler But probably such an audience (let's say Trump's audience) will not be so diverse. E.g. too much praising of only one political preference. It could be kind of biased.

Felix Sattler

@busmark_w_nika it would definitely end in a biased knowledge library, but I think that is the overall goal from Elon's side anyways in the end.

Nika

@felix_sattler yeah, he knows what he does :)

Giulia Borghi

The great question is... what is the "freedom of speech/content" he's counter offering? Would it really be impartial...?

Nika

@giulia_borghi Elon proclaims we are media and free speech, but he will silence those who do not please him.

Giulia Borghi

@busmark_w_nika so we have our answer about where exactly is “hopelessly biased" 😅

John W.

I know that Wikipedia has documented instances where pages about (especially) individuals or events have emphasized negative details—some accurate, others not—and when new developments provide a more positive perspective on those 'negative details', or that show the 'negative details' are false, and people have tried to add/update the page with those indisputable facts (e.g. as indisputable as actual court orders or court decisions), those editors have faced rejections or even bans on Wikipedia. So the negative views on the page remain, providing a distorted view on the person/situation.

Grokipedia could offer a different approach to address such issues. How good it will be, however, remains to be seen.

Nika

@john_wern Is Wikipedia really so negative? Like yeah, we had some "case" with moderators and they voted "vox populi" about removing stuff :D

John W.

@busmark_w_nika Oh, I didn't imply any specific case. I have just heard from time to another instances where this is the case, and in those instance nobody seemed to be permitted to change anything. I just tried to generalize for all cases I'd heard about.

For e.g. math or physics or similar, I've heard no such issue; only relating to people/events.

I just hope we get a truly democratized system: Nobody should be able to prevent anyone from editing.

Dick Wong

I think so. I've heard Mr. Musk criticize Wikipedia's reliability or bias before. To be honest, I don't know much about Wikipedia and I rarely use it. But I still believe in Elon Musk and his track record. I believe he can do it.

Nika

@dic_223 I think that Albert Einstein said: If everyone tells you that you’re crazy just because you believe in your dreams, and they end up coming true, you are the one who was right. :)

Arjav Parikh

Grokipedia feels like Elon’s way of building a truth layer he can control, but information ecosystems thrive on diversity, not centralisation.
Wikipedia’s strength is its transparency and collective checks, while Grok seems tied too closely to one person’s ideology !!
Still, competition in knowledge systems can spark innovation, as long as we stay vigilant about who writes the narrative..

Nika

@vu3ozm But some people still trust his cult. Do you think he will succeed at this?

Pankaj Ahuja
I did have a pet project about Wikipedia. Maybe I could pitch my services haha. I should’ve or could access the sources and verify Wikipedia’s information. Maybe make a truly verified Wikipedia. Many of their sources are dead or lead to nowhere.
Nika

@wikicrawl Do you mean WikiCrawl? :D

Pankaj Ahuja

@busmark_w_nika yeah, I mean it's been dead in the water since AI but if theres any demand for fact checking wikipedia articles. could get into it.