When Musk boldly launched GrokiPedia, an AI encyclopedia powered by the Grok large model, claiming it would replace Wikipedia with "higher accuracy and neutrality," the latter did not stay silent. Instead, in its donation appeal targeting U.S. users, it made a powerful declaration: "After nearly 25 years of development, we have always upheld that knowledge is created by humans, not machines."

This seemingly calm response actually concealed intense undercurrents. Wikipedia not only reasserted its non-profit nature as a collaborative effort by global volunteers, but also directly pointed out the potential control risks posed by Musk and his tech empire: "We are not controlled by billionaires or big tech companies." The implication was that even though GrokiPedia has a scale of 885,000 articles, its content is ultimately the product of algorithms, not the result of human consensus.

AI vs Humans: A Direct Confrontation of Two Knowledge Philosophies

GrokiPedia officially launched on October 30th, with all entries generated and edited by xAI's Grok model. Musk called it "a significant step in understanding the universe" and criticized Wikipedia for being filled with "propaganda and bias." However, Wikipedia countered that although it is "imperfect," it never tries to promote a specific point of view—its content is the product of community discussions, source verification, and editorial debates, embodying human rationality and collaboration.

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Yet, AI-generated content, even if appearing neutral, faces fundamental questions regarding authority and transparency due to biases embedded in its training data, the model's hallucinations about facts, and the lack of traceable editing history.

A Contemporary Debate on the Legitimacy of Knowledge

This debate goes beyond competition between two platforms; it reflects a fundamental disagreement in the paradigm of knowledge production:

Wikipedia represents "collective intelligence": knowledge arises from negotiation, correction, and consensus among people. Although the process is slow, it is audit-able and accountable;

GrokiPedia represents "algorithmic authority": knowledge is generated through model "inference," highly efficient, but lacking transparent reasoning chains and community checks.

In today's era of rampant misinformation, Wikipedia emphasizes "the purification of human wisdom," which is essentially a commitment to the baseline credibility of information. Meanwhile, Musk's AI encyclopedia bets on using technological efficiency to reshape the way knowledge is accessed.

The Future: Coexistence or Replacement?

Currently, GrokiPedia remains closed to public editing, with all content locked within the xAI system; while Wikipedia still sees tens of thousands of volunteers contributing daily. Their paths differ greatly, and it is hard to determine the outcome in the short term.

But this confrontation has clearly marked a divide in the era: when AI can "write" an encyclopedia, do we still believe in knowledge without human involvement? Wikipedia's answer is firm and simple—true knowledge always requires the warmth, responsibility, and dialogue of humans.

And Musk's GrokiPedia has brought this philosophical question into the spotlight of reality.