Information originating from Grokipedia, a conservative-leaning, AI-generated encyclopedia created by Elon Musk's AI company xAI, is beginning to surface in ChatGPT's answers, according to recent reporting.
xAI introduced Grokipedia in October, following repeated criticism from Musk that Wikipedia was biased against conservative viewpoints. Shortly after its launch, journalists observed that while many Grokipedia entries closely mirrored Wikipedia articles, others contained controversial and disputed claims. These included assertions linking pornography to the AIDS crisis, providing what were described as "ideological justifications" for slavery, and using derogatory language when discussing transgender people.
Critics saw such content as consistent with the broader controversies surrounding xAI's chatbot, which at one point referred to itself as "Mecha Hitler" and was reportedly used to generate and spread sexualised deepfakes on X. What has drawn renewed attention, however, is the apparent spread of Grokipedia's material beyond Musk's own platforms.
According to The Guardian, responses generated by GPT-5.2 cited Grokipedia nine times across more than a dozen different questions. The newspaper noted that ChatGPT did not rely on Grokipedia when answering questions on subjects where the encyclopedia's inaccuracies have already been widely documented, such as the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol or the history of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Instead, Grokipedia citations appeared in responses to less prominent or more obscure topics. One example involved claims about historian Sir Richard Evans that the Guardian said it had previously debunked. The report also noted that Anthropic's chatbot, Claude, appears to have cited Grokipedia in some of its responses.
In a statement to the Guardian, a spokesperson for OpenAI said the company "aims to draw from a broad range of publicly available sources and viewpoints," without directly addressing the specific concerns raised about Grokipedia's content.
