3 weeks ago
Grokipedia hasn't processed edits in months, investigation finds
Grokipedia is a website that works a bit like Wikipedia, but instead of people writing it, a computer program called an AI makes the articles.
It was started by Elon Musk and his company xAI.
The website let readers point out mistakes and suggest changes.
In the past, those suggestions were checked and answered very quickly.
But now the website has stopped answering them for more than three months.
Researchers tested it by sending in a simple correction, and nothing happened.
They looked at many pages and found that no changes were being accepted or rejected.
The website's own records of edits are also confusing and can't be trusted.
Lots of people still visit Grokipedia every month, but nobody knows if xAI will fix it.
Some experts say this shows how hard it is to run an encyclopedia all by computer.
Grokipedia, Elon Musk's AI-powered encyclopedia, has not processed a single edit or reader-suggested correction in more than three months, according to a new Lawfare investigation.
Researchers Renée DiResta and Ronald Robertson found the editing pipeline halted around 24 April, with no approvals or rejections across a sample of more than 34,000 pages and 225,000 suggested edits.
A test submission correcting Grokipedia's SpaceX page — noting the company's 12 June initial public offering — went unprocessed, along with identical suggestions from other users.
Grokipedia's audit trail is unreliable: edits Columbia's Tow Center had documented as 'accepted' now appear as 'rejected,' and some appear in live articles despite being logged as rejected.
Grokipedia drew an estimated 6.7 million visits in June, and its content has been cited roughly 356,000 times by other AI systems; xAI has not responded to the findings.
- Who
- Elon Musk's xAI, which runs Grokipedia; researchers Renée DiResta and Ronald Robertson, who published the findings in Lawfare
- What
- Grokipedia has stopped processing edits and reader-submitted corrections, with no entry changed in more than three months
- Where
- Grokipedia, xAI's AI-generated online encyclopedia
- When
- Around 24 April — the pipeline has been stalled since; the findings were published this week
- Why
- The automated systems behind most edits went down in stages between March and mid-April, and xAI has not responded or given a timeline for a fix
Key facts
- Research published in
- Lawfare, by Renée DiResta and Ronald Robertson
- Editing pipeline halted
- Around 24 April; no approvals or rejections since
- Investigation sample
- 34,000+ pages with 225,000 suggested edits
- Test submission
- SpaceX IPO update went unprocessed
- June traffic (Similarweb)
- 6.7 million visits
- AI citations (Ahrefs)
- About 356,000, including ChatGPT and Google's AI Mode
- Most-viewed page
- Barack Obama, with 83+ million views
- xAI response
- No response to the findings
Quotes
Renée DiResta
Researcher and co‑author of the Lawfare analysis
“The encyclopedia stopped editing itself and processing suggested edits from humans.”
theprint.in
Sources
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