Wikipedia cofounder says he isn't surprised at criticism of Elon Musk's Grokipedia

Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia, has expressed skepticism about the trustworthiness of Grokipedia, the AI-driven encyclopedia launched by Elon Musk. This initiative, introduced last October, came after Musk's persistent claims of left-wing bias within Wikipedia's framework. In a recent interview with The Verge, Wales admitted to having only briefly explored Grokipedia. He noted that the criticism directed at Musk's platform comes as no surprise to him. "A lot of the criticism that it's getting is not surprising to me," Wales stated. He raised concerns about the reliability of an encyclopedia influenced by personal biases, saying, "I'm not sure anybody's going to trust an encyclopedia that has a thumb on the scales." Wales emphasized the contrast between his approach and Musk's. When faced with disagreements on Wikipedia, he prefers to engage in dialogue. In contrast, he implied that Musk might directly alter content he disagrees with. Musk's leadership style has often involved hands-on decision-making, as seen during his acquisition of Twitter, where he reportedly changed the algorithm to favor his posts. Wales also highlighted the challenges associated with using AI, particularly with Grok, the large language model from xAI, which is employed for content creation on Grokipedia. "I use large language models a lot and I know about the hallucination problem, and I see it all the time. Large language models really aren't good enough to write an encyclopedia," he remarked. Wikipedia allows its content to be accessed by AI bots, a strategy aimed at maintaining its user base amidst rising competition from platforms like Grokipedia. Users have noted that some Grokipedia entries closely resemble those found on Wikipedia. Furthermore, Wales pointed out that certain Grokipedia articles reflect Musk's political stance, with Business Insider identifying significant ideological discrepancies between the two encyclopedias on pivotal topics. Musk has ambitious goals for Grokipedia, claiming it to be the "modern-day Library of Alexandria," with aspirations to eventually extend its reach into deep space. The platform has seen notable growth, with its article count climbing from 885,279 at launch to over 1 million, while Wikipedia boasts more than 7 million entries.