Elon Musk. Image: Allison Robbert-Pool/Getty Images 29 October 2025 Elon Musk’s company xAI has released the first version of Grokipedia, an artificial intelligence-powered alternative to Wikipedia. This initial version, called v0.1, contains around 885,000 English-language articles – about 10% of the size of English Wikipedia. Although translations and images are missing, Musk claims that Grokipedia is already superior to its counterpart. However, concerns have been raised about potential plagiarism, as some Grokipedia articles appear to be direct copies of Wikipedia entries. Musk’s dissatisfaction with Wikipedia stems from his belief that the encyclopedia is biased and politically left-leaning. The underlying AI behind Grokipedia, called Grok, has already provoked controversy due to instances of Holocaust denial. While xAI has attributed these issues to programming errors, analyses suggest that changes made behind the scenes can significantly influence the AI’s outputs. Musk is not the only one concerned about the extensive use of Wikipedia to train AI models, as he believes this practice can steer the direction of AI development. Shortly after Grokipedia was launched, instances of direct plagiarism from Wikipedia – under the respective license – were identified. The American magazine Wired has collected examples of right-wing and far-right content being included in Grokipedia. A notable example is the article on slavery, which contains a lengthy passage attempting to justify the practice. Each article shows the date when the information was last checked by Grok. However, it is essential to remember that artificial intelligence systems are capable of generating convincing and plausible explanations that are factually incorrect. A spokesperson for the Wikimedia Foundation, which oversees Wikipedia, is still analysing the platform following the publication of Grokipedia. He said that Wikipedia is the only widely accessible website managed by a nonprofit organisation. According to him, human involvement plays a crucial role in building and maintaining accurate knowledge on the platform, and the collaborative nature of Wikipedia’s content creation process is essential. Although there have been previous attempts to create alternative encyclopedias, none has had a significant impact on Wikipedia’s mission. Business AM