Elon Musk Launches AI-powered Grokipedia to Compete with Wikipedia

Elon Musk uses artificial intelligence to create an alternative to Wikipedia.

Monday October 27, the 54-year-old billionaire launched his new website Grokipediaan online encyclopedia service entirely generated by AI.

The site was launched by Musk’s AI company, xAI, which he founded in 2023. The company is also responsible for Grok, the AI ​​fact-checker that Musk implemented on his social media platform X, formerly Twitter.

According to Grok, the new Grokipedia is “an AI-powered online encyclopedia designed as a more ‘truthful’ alternative to Wikipedia.”

Musk criticized Wikipedia, saying it was so “woke” it should be called “Wokipedia” on X.

“We are building Grokipedia @xAI“,” Musk announcement on September 30, saying it would be “a huge improvement over Wikipedia.”

He added: “Frankly, this is a necessary step towards xAI’s goal of understanding the Universe.”

At the time of publication, Grokipedia has over 880,000 entries. By comparison, Wikipedia has more than 7 million entries in English alone. Unlike Wikipedia, where articles are written by humans, entries on Grokipedia originate and are written entirely by AI.

An entry about Musk, for example, includes a disclaimer that the facts have been “verified by Grok.”

It features over 300 sources, many of which come from media outlets such as The New York Times and NPR. Notably, on September 30, Musk reacted with a laugh to a post on who called out Wikipedia for listing both media outlets as “reliable sources.”

Although users cannot edit the data, they can report when information in entries is incorrect.

Since its launch, however, Grokipedia has been accused of duplicating content posted on Wikipedia, NBC and other media outlets reported.

In fact, some entries on the site include the disclaimer that “content is adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license.”

NBC News noted that some of the entries on Grokipedia appear to be verbatim copies of what is already posted on Wikipedia.

On XMusk responded to people pointing out that his services referenced Wikipedia, saying they “should fix this by the end of the year.”

The launch of Grokipedia also encountered other pitfalls. The website crashed on launch, according to media outlets such as The New York Times And Fox News. The latter outlet also noted that the service’s release had been delayed by a week.

The Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organization that runs Wikipedia, appears to be responding to the service. Visitors to Wikipedia’s homepage were greeted Tuesday, October 28, with a fundraising alert.

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“After nearly 25 years, Wikipedia is still the Internet we were promised, built by people, not machines. It’s not perfect, but it’s not there to make a point. It’s owned by a nonprofit, not a giant tech company or a billionaire,” the fundraising request reads.

“Most readers donate because Wikipedia is useful to them, others because Wikipedia is more important than ever,” he continues.

In a statement shared with PEOPLE, a spokesperson for the Wikimedia Foundation said the organization is “still figuring out how Grokipedia works.”

The statement continued: “Since 2001, Wikipedia has been the backbone of knowledge on the Internet. Hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, it remains the world’s only leading website run by a nonprofit organization. Unlike newer projects, Wikipedia’s strengths are clear: it has transparent policies, rigorous oversight of volunteers, and a strong culture of continuous improvement. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, written to inform billions of readers. without promoting a particular point of view.”

“Wikipedia knowledge is – and always will be – human,” the spokesperson wrote. “Through open collaboration and consensus, people from all backgrounds build a neutral, living record of human understanding, one that reflects our collective diversity and curiosity. This human-created knowledge is what AI companies rely on to generate content; even Grokipedia needs Wikipedia to exist.”

The organization noted that there had been “experiments” in the past aimed at “creating alternative versions of Wikipedia,” adding: “this does not interfere with our work or mission.”

“As we approach Wikipedia’s 25th anniversary, Wikipedia will continue to focus on providing free and trusted knowledge, built by its community of dedicated volunteers,” the statement added.

PEOPLE reached out to Musks’ xAI for comment on the new service. xAI called these reports “lies.”