New Tech Gist: Elon Musk Plans to Replace Wikipedia with Grokipedia

• Elon Claims Grokipedia will be open source (like Wikipedia) with no usage limit (Says someone that counts how many posts you see on X (formerly Twitter)
• Says Grokipedia will be unbiased (Can you believe that?). Let's See

First of all, does Wikipedia truly need replacing? Biases, untruths, propaganda, misinformation, distorted data, censorship—you name it—are said to be some of the latest features of Wikipedia. So, no doubt, there is a problem, perhaps even a terminal one, because when you become the very problem you exist to solve, we must ask if “replacing” is even the right word, since you arguably never fulfilled your purpose in the first place.

Even ChatGPT agrees that Wikipedia is biased and has listed instances: political and cultural biases where content favors Western countries more than African and Asian counterparts, as well as gender bias, where articles about men tend to be more detailed and carefully crafted than those about women.

Wars and rumors of wars, as represented on Wikipedia, also tend to flow in the direction of the most active editors (as ChatGPT notes).

So, does it need replacing? Maybe yes, maybe no—but any solution will definitely look different to different people. And if replacement is the answer, should Elon Musk’s Grokipedia be the one? Should we jump on that?

Elon can be trusted on many things, but freedom of speech—the very thing he so glamorizes—is not one of them. For God’s sake, the man monetizes people’s ability to speak and even to see what others are saying on X.

If you aren’t a paid user, X feels like scrolling through a browser window that isn’t even connected to the internet. After acquiring Twitter on the pretext of free speech, he turned it into a cartel accessible in full only to those with money. Now, using the “unbiased” pretext, he’s trying to gain control of the world’s information encyclopedia?

Okay, Wikipedia is biased in many areas—but at least the bias is freely accessible. You can access as many “biased” articles as you like without fear of limited view or use.

Am I criticizing Elon Musk? Not exactly. I admire him and many of his inventions. But still—money isn’t everything. I'm rather calling him out, slow down on the pay-to-use system on social media, especially when it already bombards us with massive, targeted ads. That’s a double burden. And now, even Facebook is selling blue ticks because Elon Musk normalized it. Take us back to 2017, please!