San Francisco, Oct. 1 — Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, xAI, is taking on Wikipedia with the launch of a new AI-powered online encyclopedia called Grokipedia. The platform, Musk said, will offer a “massive improvement” over the current standard and is part of his broader vision of using AI to help humanity “understand the universe.”
“We are building Grokipedia @xAI. Will be a massive improvement over Wikipedia,” Musk tweeted on Tuesday. “Frankly, it is a necessary step towards the xAI goal of understanding the Universe.”
Grokipedia will be powered by Grok, xAI’s chatbot and competitor to ChatGPT, which has been trained on a wide range of internet sources, including public posts on X (formerly Twitter). Musk claims the platform will provide more accurate, transparent, and diverse information than Wikipedia, addressing what he sees as bias and a lack of neutrality in the existing online encyclopedia.
The announcement has sparked a flurry of reactions online. Many social media users expressed curiosity and excitement. “Finally! Hopefully, this will be curated better,” one user wrote, while others imagined bold futures: “We need a Trantor-level xAI Galactic Library… Grokipedia could be like the Encyclopedia Galactica meets Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.”
Skepticism also surfaced. Some questioned how Grokipedia would differ from Wikipedia, noting that “Grok uses Wikipedia data in most answers… so how exactly will Grokipedia be better?” Others warned that without sourcing from a wider range of references, the platform might simply repeat existing biases.
Musk’s latest project highlights ongoing debates over online information, media bias, and the role of large platforms in shaping public knowledge, as AI becomes an increasingly central part of content creation and consumption.
