Recently, I came across a rather interesting platform on Producthunt, The Grokipedia. The creators have used the slogan “Elon’s answer to Wikipedia” to show their goal and purpose. But can Grokipedia truly become the answer to Wikipedia, and can it overcome the bias tag that Elon Musk claims about Wikipedia? In this review article, I aim to address this question.
We will take a look at the features of Grokipedia, its pros and cons, and how it actually compares to Wikipedia.
What is Grokipedia and how does it work?
Grokipedia is an encyclopedia with a collection of approximately 900,000 articles about various topics. These articles are generated entirely by using Artificial Intelligence. The platform integrates AI with the encyclopedia and claims that it is more factual compared to other online platforms. The platform uses a combination of manual search and AI to provide information on any given topic. For each article, it uses more than 100+ reputable sources to collect the information and fact-check each article.
The platform has a minimal design with just a search bar to search for and access the desired article. When you search for any query or topic, it filters out thousands of articles and gives a list of relevant articles for people to read.
Grokipedia vs Wikipedia: Which is better?
Now, let’s fact-check the claim from the company: Is Grokipedia really the better alternative to Wikipedia? While testing both platforms, I have found that Wikipedia is far ahead of Grokipedia when it comes to their main job, that is, “being an encyclopedia”. Grokipedia is a great alternative to platforms like Medium, but it is far from reaching the standard of an encyclopedia. It hasn’t surpassed the quality of Wikipedia set by the Wikipedia.
I have come to this conclusion after comparing many articles from both platforms. Here are the key reasons why Grokipedia is not as good as Wikipedia yet.
1. The Readability of the Article Contents
The content on Grokipedia is very plain; it lacks internal linking of key terms and concepts like Wikipedia. So if you came across a foreign term while reading an article, you can not find its meaning in Grokipedia, unlike Wikipedia, which shows the meaning of key terms and concepts on hover. The Grokipedia website does not include any media files, like images and videos, with the article; it only shows a continuous plain text that makes the reading boring.
Furthermore, the website itself is not suitable for reading. It only has the Black and White colors with links highlighted in light grey. This makes the reading experience not as good as Wikipedia.
2. Accessibility to Content
Accessibility is another reason why Wikipedia is better compared to Grokipedia. The Wikipedia website is exclusively built for browsing. You can go as deep as you want, going from article to article, forming an endless chain of knowledge.
Grokipedia only shows one article at a time. If you want to know something else, you need to use the search bar again. Not to mention, the search bar is Grokipedia is not as responsive as Wikipedia. It takes a few seconds to find the right article. In version 1.0, it also shows wrong results for many search queries.
3. Quality of Information and Writing
Honestly, from my personal experience after reading the articles on Grokipedia and Wikipedia, I am not so sure about the content quality of Grokipedia articles either. The main reason is the sources of the articles.
Grokipedia gets its information from countless NEWS, blogs, YouTube Videos, and other similar sources. While the articles are better compared to Wikipedia in terms of factual correctness, it is not so far from being biased either(which Elon Musk claimed Grokimedia was built to fight against).
Most of the reference websites of Grokimedia are NEWS outlets, which are the leaders of biased knowledge and propaganda in today’s world. As such, “how will Grokimedia remain safe from being biased itself?”
For example, if you look at the article about “Russian President Vladimir Putin” on Grokimedia, it has some hash words like “As a child, Putin engaged in street fights and hooliganism in Leningrad’s courtyards,” which is based on an article from the BBC. Similarly, for US President Donald Trump, the article says, “Donald Trump attended the New York Military Academy (NYMA) in Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York, from 1959 to 1964, entering at age 13 after exhibiting behavioral difficulties in prior schools,” which was taken from the Washington Post. Such content does not sit well with the encyclopedia.
These articles are more like a personal blog than informative articles.
4. Lack of Diversity
Grokipedia lacks diversity in its content. First of all, its articles are only available in English, making the platform useless for non-English speakers. If you search on Grokipedia in other languages, the search results are either null or something entirely unrelated to the topic.
Wikipedia, on the other hand, is available in almost every native language spoken around the globe. This fact alone makes Gokimedia less desirable for millions of people around the world.
Conclusion
Grokimedia, while being good for factual information about recent incidents and trending topics, is not a good alternative to Wikipedia, at least not yet. It is not a standard encyclopedia like Wikipedia, and its own articles are biased due to the resources of its content. While it does allow users to report wrong information in an article, it is still far from being the people’s choice of an ideal encyclopedia.
Maybe in upcoming updates, it will improve its content and quality. When that happens, it will definitely become a good alternative to Wikipedia.