In late October, Elon Musk released a Wikipedia alternative, with pages written by his AI chatbot Grok. Unlike its nearly quarter-century-old namesake, Musk said Grokipedia would strip out the “woke” from Wikipedia, which he previously described as an “extension of legacy media propaganda.” But while Musk’s Grokipedia, in his eyes, is propaganda-free, it seems to have a proclivity toward right-wing hagiography.
Take Grokipedia’s entry on Adolf Hitler. Until earlier this month, the entry read, “Adolf Hitler was the Austrian-born Führer of Germany from 1933 to 1945.” That phrase has been edited to “Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and dictator,” but Grok still refers to Hitler by his honorific one clause later, writing that Hitler served as “Führer und Reichskanzler from August 1934 until his suicide in 1945.” NBC News also pointed out that the page on Hitler goes on for some 13,000 words before the first mention of the Holocaust.
Archive: http://archive.today/aEcz0
The man can literally afford to have a legal harem island, fund an entertainment company to create anything to amuse him, AND solve world hunger simultaneously…and he just fawns over Hitler.
His wealth is truly wasted.
He enjoys the smell of his own farts and believes other people will as well.
I don’t believe Elon sees any of this honestly. In his eyes, this is what it is: racist and highly propogandized bullshit. This is because Elon is a racist, highly politically bias asshole.
I wonder how (or if) grokopedia defines “woke”?
Most of the people who complain about “the woke” arent able to define it.
Not sure if you heard but according to the CEO of Palantir in an interview he gave a few weeks ago, there is now “woke left” and “woke right.”
Basically anybody on the right who wakes up and smells the bullshit in the narrative is “woke.” Like if you believe in those “crazy conspiracy theories” that say Palantir is up to some evil villain shit, you’re woke.
It’s kind of hilarious that a word literally derived from “awoken” in pronunciation, spelling, and meaning is these people’s prime insult.
So is antifa. Literally anti-fascist.
Creepy ass conservatives: Stay asleep so I can keep doing stuff to you while you’re unaware.
Palantir is a scumbag company that profits on selling the machinery of oppression to authoritarian governments and entities.
According to Peter Thiel Greta Thunberg is the Anti-Christ because she believes in people coming together and pressuring the UN. Anything to avoid accountability with these people.
When they rail against “one world government” it just makes me think it’s a good idea.
I mean they want a one government, they just want to be the ones in charge of that one government.
The entire argument is that it’s somehow safer bc it’s a private corporation/business, and not the government. Except it’s a private monopoly protected and contracted by the fucking government!
The only way that argument could possibly make the slightest bit of sense would be in an imaginary world where there was legitimate competition between other corporations (but if that was the case corporations probably wouldn’t exist) and the American people actually had some say in which private company got government contracts.
Instead, government officials (who are allegedly the reason we have to turn to private businesses bc we can’t trust the government) are buying stock in private companies, and then handing government contracts to the fucking private companies where they own stock.
Remember when he did that Nazi salute, and we kept hearing it totally wasn’t a Nazi salute, and the Trump administration kept saying that we were all just looking for imaginary things to be outraged over?
Then why is he having Grok rewrite Wiki and calling Hitler the Führer, Bart?
Tbh, from a historical point of view, The Führer was used to describe Hitler. Now in Germany, it’s basically only used to refer to him.
I’m not for deleting history, and I think the context is important. People needs to know why The Führer or “der Führer” is bad.
A context which I think would have helped in another example would be the N-word. If everyone was really taught the history around that word, I think/hope alot of people would think twice before using it today.
Or is that only me?
Mentioning Adolf Hitler’s title (Führer) is fine (and the information about such title should be included in the wikipedia artcile about him) but why refer to him accross the article by such title?
That’s a good point. But The Führer is not something positive, and I wouldnt think much about it.
I’m don’t think this was an intentional way to make him sound better. I think we should be much more aware of fact checking what it says, than overusing a historical word to describe Hitler. That might just be an AI thing.
With Grok, it’s always a safe bet to assume malevolence is the cause for any changes.
honorific one clause later, writing that Hitler served as “Führer und Reichskanzler from August 1934 until his suicide in 1945.”
if it’s his honorific and not his official title then that should be clarified… Musk is a nazi, i’m sure grokepedia is a bunch of revisionist bullshit, but it’s not really the smoking gun and seems more like grok not groking the difference between his title and nickname.
also it pisses me off that they stole grok from the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy
“Grok” comes from Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land, where it was a Martian loan-word.
It’s not that clear really. His official titles would’ve been president and chancellor and he only got one of those in a manner the Weimar constitution legally envisioned. So the system, by which we would decide what an official title is today, was abused and then suspended all together. The title “der Führer” was basically a google translate from “il duce” in Italy and is not entirely honorific because he was leader of the Nazi party first. And he continues to be referred to by this semi-unofficial, semi-honorific title even in history books today and they don’t always bother to disambiguate or add that they mean it sarcastically. So while Grok should be shot into space. And Nazi saluting Melon Usk deserves to be under this much scrutiny and more and can otherwise go eff himself as far as I’m concerned. The Ockham’s razor for this gaff tells me the LLM just regurgitated book knowledge and nobody bothered to filter this with 2025 sensibilities. Not great but also more of a storm in a teacup. This won’t make the top ten of atrocious things coming from the Melon.
I was also looking for a word other than ‘honorific.’ I find it has a positive connotation and should not apply to the titles of such infamous individuals as Hitler or Mussolini. But I could not come up with anything snappy.
we could just say “unofficial title”?
I mean the whole stupid Grokipedia thing is a shit show that will never take off, but Fuhrer is just “leader” in German. In it’s used context for Hitler it straight up means dictator and (iirc) only came into full on use after the plebiscite giving him full dictatorial power after Hindenburg’s death in 1934 (edit: He was already the Reich’s Chancellor and merged in Hindenburg’s powers with the vote to make himself full dictator / Fuhrer).
I’d welcome input from a German national - Is the word still used there?
Führer is not just „leader“, it is tainted and using it as a substitute for Hitler in a factual text is super weird, like casually calling Jesus in his Wikipedia article „our lord and savior“ now and then.
Yeah I fully agree with this. I am thick in the middle of “Third Reich Trilogy” which gives an enormous amount of context to the word though.
If they changed it, it’s further evidence of scummy behaviour, but on its own it’s not a huge red flag for me with historical context.
Can’t recommend the books enough if you’re into that. The lad must have spent half his life in primary sources.
Thank you for this comparison. That’s a fun one and one that’s made a little more ‘subtle’ in the US if only because of how common that language is among the populace in regions and how pervasive protestantism is in advertising/messaging.
Jesus would’ve hated America. I think according to the bible he lost his shit twice - both because of capitalism.
There was one other time, when he cursed a tree because he didn’t like its fruit, but yeah in general he disliked the nascent forms of capitalism and money people that he encountered.
Is there another more ‘generic’ German term that would fit when talking about this period of time in retrospect? So you could have one line that says the German equivalent of ‘he was the leader in Germany during this time period, commonly referred to by the title Fuhrer’, and then no need to keep using “Fuhrer” anymore in the rest of the article.
Pretty sure its usually “Diktator” in that context.
Maybe Staatsoberhaupt. I would translate it as “leader”. But given how illegitimate his reign was, it is still a bit to soft.
Only his followers actually use(d) that title for him, everyone else when using that word about him, would say it’s the title his followers call(ed) him. Like how wikipedia is using it. Grok is just using it as his title, like a follower would.
You can think of it kind of like “dear leader” in north korea. Anyone calling him that outside of north korea is at least doing it sarcastically or using air quotes. This would be like if the news called him that with a sincere reverent tone.
Not German but moved to Germany. The word is still a normal word, it can be used, only in certain contexts not.
To me it is very very weird.
Especially in a comboword there is 0,0 issue: Reiseführer, Bergführer, etc. The no go zone seems very subtle to me, it’s more about pronunciation and context, not the word itself. Especially the word “Führerschein” is super weird to me when used in regular conversations. I automatically hear translated “license to be the Führer”, but it just means driver’s license and nothing else and no one finds it weird.
“Führerschein” is super weird to me when used in regular conversations. I automatically hear translated “license to be the Führer”
Not weird for point of view of polish speaker - we use same word “prowadzić” for driving a car, running a company or just leading someone to some destination. From that perspective concept of leading a country and “leading” a car is perfectly intuitive
Exactly this. If you use it as part of a compound word or as a verb it’s totally fine. However “der Führer” (the Führer) is exclusively used to describe Hitler, and it usually has a negative or ironic vibe depending on who says it.
About the Führerschein… führen and fahren have the same etymological root… It is still used in “Führen eines Fahrzeugs” which simply means “driving a car” and that is where the term comes from.
Führer means driver also. So literally Driver’s license.
You don‘t really call him just the Führer in academic works so anything that works like an encyclopedia shouldn‘t either. The title is charged with either mockery or admiration. It should have no place in this context, because it should at least try to be neutral if you ask me.
I’m in the thick of a 90 hour audiobook trilogy on the third Reich which is absolutely incredible (link) and Fuhrer is used liberally, partly to describe his ascent to absolute dictator as opposed to just Reich’s Chancellor.
I’m not defending shitopedia for one second! I’m just not sure it’s as outrageous as other shit that’s taking up our limited attention span at the moment is all.
Why would they use the honorary, German word Fuhrer in an English language wiki article though?
Exactly.
If you are describing hitler’s role in WW2? Yes, he was The German Fuhrer.
I would say that, honestly, I prefer the second version as it is more accurate to what he was. But any time you change something you have to ask “what does it mean that we are changing things?”
And since musk is, at best, someone who wishes he was as cool as the losers on LUE back in the day? This is very much not being done with a journalistic style guide in mind.
We also use “Dalai Lama”, for example. Changing it to “leader” would lose a lot in translation. There’s a very long list of more problematic things with Musk and this ego project than this particular wording choice.
I agree with the second half but disagree on the first. We do use Dalai Lama because thats what he’s known as across the world (at least fron my understanding) . We didn’t refer to Angela Merkel as Furher of Germany when she lead it so it seems weird to include this in the introductory summary of Hitler especially considering it’s an English article. I dont think you’re losing anything in translation in this example by calling him the “leader of Germany” at that time. Down below, in the verbose write-up, seems like the more appropriate place to use it.
I don’t think the Merkel comparison is accurate - no one called her Leader, we called her the Chancellor (Kanzler), because that’s the job title. “Chancellor” is a pretty specific word in English with a narrower meaning and clearer connotation than “leader”, which can be used in a huge variety of contexts. The problem is that English doesn’t have a 1:1 translation of Fuehrer as we do with Kanzler, and “leader” is too generic versus Chancellor, Prime Minister, President, etc. Maybe “Supreme Leader” would work, but I haven’t seen that used often enough for it to stick.
Fuhrer is just “leader” in German.
Yeah, go to Germany and call any leader “Führer” and see how well that goes. Uh, maybe not in Eastern Germany where they’ll probably like it.
As a german, the word is very seldom used, and everybody cringes on use of it alone. We even use the english word guide instead for situations where it fits.
Thanks so much. I thought that would be the case but I wondered around things like “team leader” or “band leader” or whatever.
My guess was that it was forever tainted so I appreciate the context.
Not a german national, but I’m learning it at school, and they say that if you go to a german-speaking region, it’s better to say “chef”, because “führer” is still connected to that guy
I just watched a tech video that reviewed two North Korean smartphones. Its autocorrect assertively blocks out or autoreplaces anything deemed unfit by the government, along with absolute control of what can be done on it, and absolute fingerprinting of anything sent.
I was reminded of this for no reason.
link?
Conservapedia already did this something like twenty years ago. It missed the entire purpose of the project, which was to invite a kaleidoscope of specialists and journalists to document the volume of known information categorically, primarily through citation to other online works.
Instead, you had a basket case of ultra-orthodox ideologues carving out a very niche set of contrary opinion posts that weren’t well documented or continuously maintained.
Conservapedia isn’t a right wing vanity project because of it’s hot takes on Hitler, it’s a vanity project because of the yawning gulfs in it’s data set. Nobody engages with the site, because it is so heavily censored.
I get the sense Grokapedia will suffer the same fate. If a subject doesn’t tickle Musk’s interest, it’ll either go undocumented or be a naked plagarization of some other online encyclopedia. And as soon as Musk loses interest entirely, support for the service will go the same way as so many private vanity projects.
Incidentally, Wikipedia’s fate is also an open question. What happens when Jimmy Wales can’t administer and fundraise for it anymore? How long until some hacks get their hooks in and corrupt it like so many other private media outlets?
educated reality has a liberal bent
conservatives don’t like this
That’s exactly why it’s freely licensed, because we can’t even trust King Jimbo.
I mean, just having the ability to roll up your own Wiki is very handy.
I would appreciate a way to archive the citations, so that a link-break down the line doesn’t cause the raw data to be lost. But that’s a problem with copywrite and IP more than anything Wikipedia does natively.
Sure, that’s a work around. But it relies on a trusted third party, along with wiki mods who don’t yank the entry because they don’t recognize the archived source as a valid citation.
It isn’t a feature integrated into the encyclopedia.
Queue the return of the door to door Encyclopedia salesman. Soon everyone will have a World Book Encyclopedia set in their home again!
I still have my dad’s 1957 edition sitting on my childhood bedroom shelf.
It is genuinely kind of wild to read through that thing, in light of modern history.
It’s the holidays and he misses his dad…
he misses his sister mom too. She probably gives him special favors
I’m sure Grokipedia is dumb as hell but so is this article, just look at the actual Wikipedia on Hitler, it says nearly word-for-word that exactly:
To be fair, the wikipedia article says he was called that by the people that followed him. It never calls him that itself.
The grokipedia article, just calls him that.
A subtle, but very important, distinction.
Not to mention the other important part where grok buries any mention of the holocaust 13000 words in, where as it’s in the intro on wikipedia.
Keep in mind, by default, grokipedia started with a copy of what wikipedia said, so any changes are what was hand-edited on purpose.
The changes speak to what they wanted it to say and do differently.
Maybe I’m just not getting the distinction between “The Fuhrer” literally redirecting to the Hitler page on Wikipedia, isn’t that Wikipedia saying those two terms are so synonymous that they don’t need separate pages?
