xAI Launches Grokipedia an AI-Based Wikipedia Substitute
xAI, headed by Elon Musk, launches Grokipedia, an AI-based Wikipedia substitute. The public beta testing of this academically-slanted online encyclopedia is now open.
Purposes and Ideas behind Grokipedia
According to Musk, the project hopes for "a big upgrade over Wikipedia", which has had its fair share of mentions for Musk's beef with its information-source restrictions and content-moderating policies. He further said, "It is a necessary step toward xAI understanding the Universe."
The Current State of Grokipedia (v0.1)
At press time, Grokipedia is in v0.1, the first test launch. Here are the highlights from the launch:
- Number of Articles: Grokipedia had 885,279 articles at its launch. Meanwhile, Wikipedia has more than 7 million articles in the English version alone for comparison.
- User Interface: The site has a very minimalistic design with all attention directed to the central search bar. The search bar suggests query phrasings as the user types.
- Layout Design: For the time being, articles do not have any images. For ease of reading, topics and subtopics are laid out with the aid of the navigation panel on the left side of the screen.
Problems and Major Limitations of an Experimental Phase
In fact, as an experimental phase project, Grokipedia suffers a great deal due to the glaring limitations and issues at the launch:
- No Edit by Users: Users cannot edit articles publicly, although edits can be viewed (but not attributed to anyone).
- Unstable Site: The site was reported to have been operating unstably close to the time of the official announcement.
- Content Issues: A few articles have reportedly been taken from Wikipedia word-for-word and unchanged.
