“Hadn’t had an original thought ever:” Grokipedia condemned for taking entries from Wikipedia
Grokipedia, Wikipedia's rival, is already out. However, it seems to be more of a wannabe twin than a rival.
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Grokipedia, Wikipedia's rival, is already out. However, it seems to be more of a wannabe twin than a rival.
Elon Musk’s xAI company has recently launched Grokipedia, an online encyclopedia similar to Wikipedia, which has been around for 24 years.
According to @amXFreeze, who shares tech updates on X with 60 thousand followers, the new AI-powered online encyclopedia is expected “to be the world's biggest, most accurate knowledge source, for humans and AI with no limits on use."
However, after its beta release, it’s been reported that Grokipedia is quite similar to Wikipedia.
The first thing users see when on the main page of Grokipedia v0.1 is a search bar. Once the user adds an entry, the site shows possible search topics.
Once that’s selected, it provides information segmented by headings and subheadings and includes a References list, similar to how information is shown on Wikipedia. However, Grokipedia doesn’t include photos or images.
While users on Wikipedia are allowed to edit its pages, the same doesn’t seem to apply to Grokipedia. Only some pages include an “Edit” button, which only shows the edits that have already been made and doesn’t allow any further updates.
Where does Grokipedia take its information from?
In a post on X, Musk reacted to praise of Grokipedia by adding that “you will be able to ask Grok to add/modify/delete articles and it will either take the action or tell you it won’t and why.”
While the idea behind Grokipedia is to be better than Wikipedia, it’s been reported that it has already copied information from Wikipedia.
The Verge reports multiple search examples that include the note at the bottom of the page stating: “The content is adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.”
Some searches also included information that word-for-word matches the content from Wikipedia pages.
I also tested Grokipedia to see what kind of content it would show about Apple (the company). While the information about Apple Inc. was different from the one shared on Wikipedia, the search for apple (the fruit) revealed that it was taken from Wikipedia.
Grokipedia vs Wikipedia: which one tells the truth?
According to X News, Grokipedia aims to become “the world’s largest and most accurate knowledge source without centralized control." This comes after claims that Wikipedia is becoming more biased.
The goal of creating an impartial online encyclopedia led Musk to change the initial launch of Grokipedia. The release of the encyclopedia was scheduled for October 20th. However, Musk delayed the launch to “purge propaganda.”
Despite Grokipedia's intention to release an unbiased encyclopedia, the information provided isn’t entirely accurate.
The encyclopedia has already sparked a debate about the information it shows about George Floyd. It’s already been noted that Grokipedia describes Floyd as an “American man with a lengthy criminal record,” while Wikipedia names Floyd as an “African American man who was murdered by a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during an arrest.”
While some of Grokipedia’s search results were similar to Wikipedia, The Wired notes that the encyclopedia often condemned the mainstream media, accentuated conservative viewpoints, and even showed historical inaccuracies in its answers.
For example, when searching for “gay marriage,” Grokipedia didn’t provide any entry, but one of its search suggestions included “gay pornography,” with the search entry relating it to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s.
Users ask what will Grokipedia do next?
Reports about Grokipedia taking information from Wikipedia started a discussion online.
“Of course it does. Hadn’t had an original thought ever,” wrote one user, referring to Elon Musk and his online encyclopedia with copied information from Wikipedia.
“It's way worse, they scraped all over it, even Wikipedia has its bot turned off. If laws are good, these guys should face jail,” noted another user.
The comment started a debate about whether anything could be done since Wikipedia provides its data for free, but only for personal use and not for business purposes.
“I'm curious about how they're going to keep it up to date. Just periodically copy Wikipedia? I suppose with a filter to censor things that Musk doesn't like?” shared another Redditor.
“So is this Conservapedia all over again? One asshole's hateblog thinly disguised as an online encyclopedia?” shared another netizen.
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