So. Elon Musk did a thing. Again.
This time, it’s an encyclopedia. I’m not kidding. He looked at Wikipedia, the website that has settled and started more arguments than any other place on the internet, and apparently thought, “I can do that.”
The result is Grokipedia, a new website from his xAI company that’s officially live. It’s being sold as a direct challenger and alternative to Wikipedia, promising a whole different approach to how we get information.
But what does that mean? Is it actually different? And is it any good?
I spent some time poking around, and we need to talk about it. We’ll go through what it’s like to use right now, in its baby “v0.1” stage. We’ll cover the clunky parts, the clean design, and the one massive detail I found that sort of changes the whole story.
First Impressions: A Look at the Grokipedia Website
When you first land on the Grokipedia homepage, it feels… slick. It’s all dark mode, with a single search bar floating in what looks like outer space. It’s clean. It’s minimal. And it has a “v0.1” badge right next to the name, which is the universal sign for “this is probably going to be buggy, don’t get mad.”
It has a certain vibe. Less like a library, more like you’re about to ask the computer from Star Trek for information. A very empty Star Trek computer.
At the bottom of the screen, a little counter boasts 885,279 articles are ready to go. That’s a pretty big number for a day-one launch. It definitely made me curious.
So I decided to search for something basic. Something everyone knows.
“list of disney movies”
Using Grokipedia Search: There’s a Trick to It
Alright, this is where you can tell it’s brand new.
If you type “list of disney movies” and just hit enter, you don’t get an article. You get a page that says “Search for ‘list of disney movies’ yielded 10,000 results.”
Ten. Thousand.
The list that shows up is kind of a mess, with stuff like “List of Nickelodeon Movies productions” mixed in. It’s spread across 834 pages. It’s not a great way to find what you want.
BUT. There’s a trick.
If you start typing slowly, the autofill suggestions are your best friend. Just typing “list of disney” brings up a helpful list of actual articles:
- list of disney movies
- List of Walt Disney Pictures films
- List of Walt Disney theatrical animated feature films
Then as you continue typing out the entire phrase “list of disney movies,” the suggestions narrow down to a few key choices, like “List of Walt Disney Pictures films” and “Lists of Walt Disney Studios films.”
This seems to be how you’re supposed to use it right now. Forget hitting enter. Trust the suggestions.
But here’s another interesting quirk: the information seems to be split across different articles, and it’s not obvious which one has what you need.
For instance, clicking on “Lists of Walt Disney Studios films” is honestly a bit underwhelming. It takes you to a simple directory page, not a real article. It’s just a collection of bullet points linking out to other lists, organized by decade. It’s a hub, basically. Functional, but not a ton of info there.
However, if you click on “List of Walt Disney Pictures films“, you don’t get a history of their classic movies. Instead, you get a highly detailed article focusing only on their upcoming and in-development films. It’s packed with tables showing production status, notes on creative teams, and release dates for movies that are years away.
So, the current experience is fragmented. To find a complete list of Disney movies, you have to navigate through a directory page and a separate article just about future projects.
Where Grokipedia’s Content Comes From (Hint: You’ve Seen It Before)
Once you click on an article, things start to look really familiar. The page for “List of Walt Disney Pictures films,” for example, has tables, dates, notes, and little blue numbers for citations. It looks… well, it looks exactly like a Wikipedia page.
That’s because it is a Wikipedia page.
(I almost missed this myself, it’s pretty subtle.)
You have to scroll all the way down. Past all the movies. Past all the references. To the very bottom of the page.
There, in tiny gray text, is the big reveal:
“The content is adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.”
Well then.
So Grokipedia, right now, isn’t a totally new encyclopedia. It’s a new skin. A new interface and a new search system built on top of Wikipedia’s existing library of content.
Grokipedia vs. Wikipedia – So What’s the Real Difference? A Look at the George Floyd Articles
This is where it gets good.
We’ve been looking at a pretty neutral topic. Disney movies aren’t exactly controversial. But what happens when you search for something where every word matters? Where the order you present facts can change the entire story?
This is the whole reason Grokipedia exists. I looked up “George Floyd” on both sites.
The difference is immediate and it is stark.
Here’s the first sentence of the Wikipedia article:
“George Perry Floyd Jr. … was an African American man who was murdered by a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota…”
The entire opening is about the circumstances of his death. It uses the word “murdered” and sets the stage for the “protests against police brutality” that followed.
Now, look at Grokipedia’s first sentence:
“George Perry Floyd Jr. … was an American man with a lengthy criminal record including convictions for armed robbery, drug possession, and theft in Texas from 1997 to 2007.”
Woah.
That’s a completely different framing of the same person.
Grokipedia puts his criminal record at the very top, before it even mentions the arrest. The article then details the medical examiner’s ruling, including “contributing factors” like fentanyl and heart disease. It calls the aftermath “extensive civil unrest” and “riots.”
One story is about a man whose death sparked a movement.
The other is about a man with a criminal past whose death, complicated by other factors, led to riots.
Wikipedia does mention Floyd’s criminal history, but it’s buried way down the page in its own section. And let’s be real, nobody reads that far. The first paragraph is the only thing that matters for 99% of people.
Both articles are using sourced facts. But the choice of what to show you first creates two completely different narratives. Wikipedia prioritizes the social story of his death. Grokipedia prioritizes the personal story of his life.
Whether that’s truly “unbiased” or just a different kind of bias is the big question. And it’s probably what everyone will be arguing about for a long time.
How to Access Grokipedia
If you’re curious and want to form your own opinion, the site is live.
Go see for yourself. You can find it at grokipedia.com.