The Problem With Grokipedia Isn’t AI, It’s Control

Elon Musk’s X ecosystem is apparently getting ready to launch a rival to Wikipedia called Grokipedia, an AI-driven knowledge platform built around xAI’s chatbot Grok. It is being described as a space for “technical insights” with a Grok-inspired aesthetic. Ambitious, yes. But it also raises several red flags that are hard to ignore.

Grok, the AI system behind this idea, already has a history of unpredictability and ideological tilt. Over the past year, its tone has shifted dramatically: from being called “too woke” to being deliberately refashioned as more “politically incorrect.” Some of its responses even echoed fringe theories, which xAI later dismissed as “unauthorized modifications.” If this same system forms the backbone of an encyclopedia, we have to ask what happens when the lines between fact and opinion blur, and when that blur is shaped by one person’s agenda.

Wikipedia, for all its flaws, works because it is transparent. You can see every edit, read the debates behind articles, and understand how consensus is formed. It is messy, human, and often imperfect, but that is exactly what makes it trustworthy. Knowledge there is peer-checked, sourced, and open to challenge. Grokipedia, on the other hand, seems to be built in a closed loop of control, without clarity on how information will be sourced, verified, or moderated. If Grok’s answers can be changed overnight to suit a narrative, how do we trust a Grok-run encyclopedia to represent truth rather than perspective?

This discussion also comes at a time when Wikipedia itself is struggling. Recent reports show that its global traffic has fallen by about 8 percent, with users increasingly relying on AI summaries from search engines or chatbots instead of visiting the site directly. That decline hurts not only visibility but also participation, fewer readers mean fewer contributors, and fewer contributors mean slower fact-checking and weaker community oversight. Even the Wikimedia Foundation has voiced concerns that AI platforms are “free-riding” on its volunteer labor while draining away the ecosystem that sustains it.

So now, in the middle of that shift, comes Grokipedia, a platform that could take the public’s dwindling trust in communal knowledge and turn it into a private product. When knowledge becomes a branded experience curated by a company or an individual, it is no longer a public good. It is marketing with footnotes. And while that might sound like innovation, it is actually a step backward, from open verification to top-down truth.

The danger is not just misinformation; it is manipulation by design. AI-driven systems learn patterns but also internalize biases. If those biases reflect a single ideological lens, the knowledge they produce becomes a feedback loop that confirms beliefs rather than challenges them. An encyclopedia built that way does not enlighten; it reinforces. It does not teach; it persuades. And persuasion dressed up as reference is one of the most dangerous forms of propaganda we can create.

If Grokipedia truly aims to improve how we access information, it needs to start where Wikipedia did: with transparency, accountability, and community trust. Otherwise, it will not be an encyclopedia. It will be a mirror showing us only what one person wants us to see.