Elon Musk’s Grokipedia Extensively Copied From Wikipedia

Yesterday, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, unveiled what it calls Grokipedia: a competitor to Wikipedia, which Musk has criticized for being too “woke.”

Except as Edge According to reports, Grokepedia appears to be largely adapted from Wikipedia, with many entries copied almost word for word from the online encyclopedia that Musk supposedly despises.

Grokipedia’s reliance on Wikipedia runs deep. Some pages even acknowledge that “their content is adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.” Many of them, including popular topics like Monday, Apple, and PlayStation 5, appear to be almost exact copies of their Wikipedia counterparts.

Where the pages differ, the changes often appear to be ideological in nature.

For example, as Edge He also notes that the climate change entry eliminated most instances of the word “consensus” to describe the overwhelming scientific consensus that human activities are responsible for rising global temperatures.

Or consider the entry for president Donald Trump — once a close ally of Musk — which, e.g. NBC News As he points out, he did not mention Trump’s acceptance of an expensive plane from Qatar, a move widely described as bribery, or his disastrous currency.

It should also come as no surprise that Musk’s entry failed to mention that he gave several Nazi salutes at Donald Trump’s celebration after his inauguration in January.

Perhaps the most terrible thing is, Wired I noticed that one Grokipedia entry on slavery in the United States has a section that refers to “ideological justifications” for the enslavement of African Americans. Another entry links gay pornography to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Its difference from Wikipedia can have a defining element, as when the Grokipedia entry on Wikipedia claims to have a “left-wing slant in coverage of political figures and topics.”

Wikimedia Foundation spokeswoman Lauren Dickinson said in a widely shared statement that Wikipedia simply would not exist without Wikipedia.

“Unlike more recent projects, Wikipedia’s strengths are clear: it has transparent policies, strict volunteer oversight, and a strong culture of continuous improvement,” she wrote.

Dickinson took aim at XAI’s reliance on artificial intelligence technology to gather knowledge on the Internet.

“The knowledge Wikipedia provides is – and always will be – human,” she added. “Through open collaboration and consensus, people of all backgrounds build a living, impartial record of human understanding—a record that reflects our collective diversity and curiosity.”

“This human-created knowledge is what AI companies rely on to create content,” Dickinson wrote. “Even Grokipedia needs to have a Wikipedia.”

While Wikipedia relies on volunteers to update its entries, the way Grokipedia entries are created and updated is murky at best. Case in point: Some of its articles have an “Edit” button — but clicking on it doesn’t allow users to make changes.

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