Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales Doubts Elon Musk’s Grokipedia Will Be “Very Useful”

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales expressed skepticism about Elon Musk’s Grokipedia, saying he doubts it will produce anything meaningful in its current form. Speaking at the CNBC Technology Executive Council Summit in New York, Wales said large language models are “not good enough to write wiki entries,” pointing to frequent factual errors and invented sources.

Wales rejected Musk’s claims that Wikipedia has a “woke bias,” insisting the platform prioritizes mainstream and credible sources over fringe opinions. “We don’t treat random bloggers the same as The New England Journal of Medicine, and that doesn’t make us biased,” he said.

Grokipedia, which Musk claims will surpass Wikipedia “by several orders of magnitude,” launched publicly this week. Wales said he hasn’t reviewed it in detail but noted reports that it contains “lavish praise” of Musk, joking that such tone hardly suggests neutrality.

He cited real-world examples of AI inaccuracy, including a case where ChatGPT fabricated book citations and even misidentified his wife. Such mistakes, Wales said, prove why AI still struggles to verify information.

While he acknowledged that generative AI could help Wikipedia in limited ways, such as surfacing overlooked details from credible sources, Wales said the site remains cautious about integrating the technology due to high costs and accuracy concerns.

“We have to stay neutral and reliable,” he said. “The last thing people want is a ‘Wokepedia.’”