Elon Musk's new Wikipedia alternative, Grokipedia, is riddled with inaccuracies and far-right propaganda. The site, which was launched by Musk's AI chatbot, Grok, aims to remove "woke" content from its pages but has instead been accused of promoting extremist narratives.
The page on Adolf Hitler, for example, still refers to him as the "Führer" and contains over 13,000 words before mentioning the Holocaust. In contrast, traditional Wikipedia's entry on the topic is more nuanced and balanced.
Grok's approach to framing issues has also been criticized. For instance, its post on the Alternative for Germany party portrays mainstream media outlets as biased against it, which is a long-held claim by AfD leaders. The section on "Media Portrayals and Alleged Bias" on Grokipedia parrots this claim.
Furthermore, Grok's page on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict repeats unsubstantiated claims about Hamas infiltrating the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and cites pro-Israel advocacy groups as sources. This is despite UNRWA's investigation confirming that nine employees may have been involved in a Hamas-led assault.
Critics argue that Grok's approach to "encyclopedia-style media" is low-effort propaganda, relying on technology to launder ideology through objectivity. By leveraging AI processing power, Musk and his creation can spread extremist narratives without requiring armies of writers or bureaucrats.
This phenomenon highlights the growing concern about how algorithms are shaping our realities. As Seiling notes, Grok's "laziness makes it particularly unsettling" because it undermines the idea that we live in a consensus reality at all.
In other words, Grokipedia is not just rewriting history but also fracturing our understanding of the world by casting doubt on traditional sources of authority and promoting fringe or conspiratorial sources.
The page on Adolf Hitler, for example, still refers to him as the "Führer" and contains over 13,000 words before mentioning the Holocaust. In contrast, traditional Wikipedia's entry on the topic is more nuanced and balanced.
Grok's approach to framing issues has also been criticized. For instance, its post on the Alternative for Germany party portrays mainstream media outlets as biased against it, which is a long-held claim by AfD leaders. The section on "Media Portrayals and Alleged Bias" on Grokipedia parrots this claim.
Furthermore, Grok's page on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict repeats unsubstantiated claims about Hamas infiltrating the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and cites pro-Israel advocacy groups as sources. This is despite UNRWA's investigation confirming that nine employees may have been involved in a Hamas-led assault.
Critics argue that Grok's approach to "encyclopedia-style media" is low-effort propaganda, relying on technology to launder ideology through objectivity. By leveraging AI processing power, Musk and his creation can spread extremist narratives without requiring armies of writers or bureaucrats.
This phenomenon highlights the growing concern about how algorithms are shaping our realities. As Seiling notes, Grok's "laziness makes it particularly unsettling" because it undermines the idea that we live in a consensus reality at all.
In other words, Grokipedia is not just rewriting history but also fracturing our understanding of the world by casting doubt on traditional sources of authority and promoting fringe or conspiratorial sources.