Key Takeaways
- Grokipedia Beta in Two Weeks: Elon Musk said his AI startup xAI will release an early beta of Grokipedia within two weeks, calling it an open-source alternative to Wikipedia aimed at improving factual accuracy.
- AI to Verify Information: Musk described Grokipedia as an AI-driven platform that reviews and rewrites content by identifying falsehoods, correcting partial truths, and filling in missing context.
- Criticism of Wikipedia: The billionaire has repeatedly accused Wikipedia of political bias and selective editing, referring to it as “Wokipedia” and mocking its fundraising campaigns.
- Push for “Unfiltered Knowledge”: By linking Grokipedia to xAI’s wider mission, Musk presents it as an alternative to what he sees as bias in mainstream information platforms.
Elon Musk, the billionaire behind Tesla, SpaceX and social platform X, said on Monday his artificial intelligence startup xAI will release an early beta version of Grokipedia in two weeks, describing it as an AI-driven, open-source alternative to Wikipedia.
Posting on social platform X, Musk said the early beta of Grokipedia would be released in two weeks, while replying to a tech-savvy user who described the project as an AI-driven system that reviews and rewrites information from sources such as Wikipedia by identifying falsehoods, correcting half-truths, and adding missing context.
Musk first revealed the project on Sept. 30, calling it a “massive improvement over Wikipedia” and a step toward xAI’s goal of “understanding the universe.”
His comment followed a post by venture capitalist David Sacks, who alleged that Wikipedia is “hopelessly biased,” which Musk reposted in apparent agreement.
Why Musk Wants to Rewrite the Internet’s Encyclopedia
Elon Musk’s criticism of Wikipedia stretches back several years, focused on what he describes as political bias and selective editing by the site’s volunteer community. The billionaire has accused the online encyclopedia of promoting “mainstream narratives,” often mocking its fundraising campaigns and urging followers not to donate.
In several posts on X, Musk has referred to the site as “Wokipedia,” and joked that he might buy it and give it a new name to reflect what he sees as its political bias.
Since then, Musk has aligned himself with critics who claim Wikipedia’s volunteer editing system allows ideology to influence content. He has often repeated those arguments in his own posts, framing Grokipedia as an answer to what he sees as editorial bias and selective fact-checking.
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