Elon Musk’s long-awaited “Grokipedia,” an AI-powered encyclopedia designed to rival Wikipedia, had a rocky start on Monday, briefly going live before crashing. The site now appears to be working and claims to have over 885,000 articles.
Musk, who has been a vocal critic of Wikipedia, has been hyping Grokipedia as a less biased alternative. He and his allies have long claimed that the crowd-sourced encyclopedia has a left-leaning slant. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has called Musk’s claims “factually incorrect.”
Last week, Musk said the launch of Grokipedia was being delayed so his team could do more work to “purge out the propaganda.” But a quick look at the new site shows that some articles are nearly identical to their Wikipedia counterparts, with a small disclaimer that the content was “adapted from Wikipedia.”
In other cases, social media users have already found examples where Musk’s own worldview seems to shine through. For instance, the entry for “university” reportedly includes a section that is highly critical of modern higher education, a common theme in Musk’s public statements.
The launch and immediate crash are a fitting start for a project surrounded by controversy and high expectations. It’s still too early to tell if Grokipedia will be a real challenger to Wikipedia, but for now, it’s certainly got people talking.
