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Grokipedia and the coup against reality

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Re: Grokipedia and the coup against reality

#141
post #41

[flagged]

It's not just Musk, of course; many people in his political realm do the same. You misunderstand what they're doing, which is why they're so successful and 'get away with it' endlessly. It looks like something you expect, but you're losing the game because you aren't even aware you're on the field playing. You'll notice their followers laugh about 'owning' you - what do they mean?

To the (neo-reactionaries), words are weapons and not conveyers of information. Extreme statements are, in many cases, better weapons than accurate ones, certainly better than moderate ones - they sieze the initiative, put the speaker on offense, put their opponent on their heels because the words are so unexpected and aggressive.

To people who think the words convey information, the words and behavior make no sense. You think you're having a political debate, but they are fighting a war to destroy you. It's like you listening to their signal, trying to decode what makes no sense, when they are really trying to electrocute you.

In a sense I don't fault people for not grokking that (ha ha) but I do fault them for seeing something is wrong, for all these years, and not making the intellectual effort to figure it out. It seems like almost nobody, national and world leaders and leading intellectuals included, has figured it out.

Re: Grokipedia and the coup against reality

#142

The gap widens. If you're discussing something online, and someone drops a Grok link as evidence or reference material, how are you supposed to continue at that point? You can't convince someone who lives in an alternate reality of anything by argument. I think I would just stop relying. Most people would. It's not a new problem, but that wall keeps growing.

> You can't convince someone who lives in an alternate reality of anything by argument.

Your powerlessness, their invincibility, is part of their propaganda. It's like the reason people act angrily - they are trying to discourage you from approaching them.

Argument doesn't work. You'll be surprised what sincere, genuine, empathetic reasoning does. I find it works pretty well. Take them seriously, have genuine empathy, don't get inflamed - that's the intent of their leaders' inflammatory language: they want you inflamed, to drive a wedge between you and your friend.

Re: Grokipedia and the coup against reality

#143

Some interesting comparisons I found between Wikipedia and grok. These are the intro paragraphs. Grokipedia: The Biden–Ukraine controversy pertains to allegations that U.S. Vice President Joe Biden conditioned $1 billion in loan guarantees on the Ukrainian government's dismissal of Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin in March 2016, purportedly to obstruct an ongoing investigation into Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian ene…

In both these cases Grokipedia clearly comes out on top mostly due to the Wikipedia entries being so clearly biased.

Does it? I mean the quoted text doesn't really make much mention beyond the word "allegations" that there isn't any evidence of wrongdoing on Joe Biden's part. In fact, it's written as if there is still some question of validity. Grok is a rhetorical device that tries to paint right-wing reaction to woke stuff as an honest concern for journalistic integrity. If it were really being honest, why is it so often just a blatant point by point contradiction of whatever the wikipedia article says in all these culture war matters?

Re: Grokipedia and the coup against reality

#144
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same as Wikipedia: wikis aren’t references. Ask them to cite an actual source. Grokipedia seems to have more and wider references than Wikipedia.

True, but more and wider references seems to imply better when I’m not sure that’s true. Wikipedia is edited and it’s sources are curated. I think that’s a good thing.

> it’s sources are curated. I think that’s a good thing.

Larry Sanger, Wikipedia's founder, does not.

https://larrysanger.org/nine-theses/#3-abolish-source-blackl...

Re: Grokipedia and the coup against reality

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The existence of trans people isn't sexist.

[flagged]

I'm not sure what you mean. I know we couldn't agree to eliminate the human rights, including the most basic self-determination, of anyone - trans, cis-norm WASP male, progressive, fascist, or otherwise.

Re: Grokipedia and the coup against reality

#146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> reduce bias, not to just rotate it to another view This is not possible.

Of course it is. You're saying there is no objective truth, and there is not point in trying for it?

> You're saying there is no objective truth, and there is not point in trying for it?

Not exactly but kinda. I'd like to think it's less nihilistic than this makes it sound, at least. Here's a definition which I think is a good working one:

https://www.wordnik.com/words/bias

> A preference or an inclination, especially one that inhibits impartial judgment.

To attempt to answer the question directly, there is still agreed truth, such as in the practice of law where a judge decides what facts are relevant to the case. In that context, the legal framework is, barring appeals, simply to accept the judge's "truth"; at least, once they've made their decision. To prevent that from devolving into madness, we train lawyers and judges to understand the meaning of certain legal terms so that they all have a similar understanding and can argue using terms which have an agreed-upon meaning. Still, there is much bias in this. If there wasn't, there would be no need for lawyers. The closest thing we get to objective truth is something like 1 + 1 = 2, but it's still agreed truth.

There are facts, but even the reporting of facts can be biased. Which facts you report, the context in which they're reported, the details that are included, the order in which they're reported. These choices have an effect on how the facts are interpreted; they are a bias. If I want to say, "The sky is blue and the Blue Man Group are entertainers," but you want to say, "Mars is called the red planet and Mars Attacks! is a movie," who is being less biased? Is a news article that reports, "Mars is called the red planet and the sky is blue," more or less biased than either of the other statements? Is one more objective than the other? How come the author didn't mention the tall smurfs if they're unbiased? Surely reporters aren't required to report all of the facts in every instance. How do they, unbiased, decide which facts are relevant to their report?

With the idea of "reducing bias", it is obvious that in order to verify that bias has been reduced, one must accurately measure "how much" bias there is. So how do you do that? Further, how do you do it in an unbiased way? How do you even know if you're doing it in an unbiased way without an unbiased measurement?

Another way to think about it is in terms of opinions. How do you express an opinion without bias? How do you express the same opinion with less or more bias? Is, "I don't care," less biased than, "I care a lot."? Is, "This makes me angry," more biased than, "I'm indifferent to this."? I would say they're equally biased. At least, I can't come up with a good reason to claim that indifference is not a bias. So, neutrality is a bias. I'm not sure what isn't a bias. I guess a bare fact. But, again, that doesn't mean the presentation of a fact is not without bias.

To give an example, it is a fact that Donald Trump is serving his second term as President. Do people often present that fact without bias? It's also a fact that Donald Trump has not served two consecutive terms as President. Is that presented without bias? Both of those decisions are biased: minimally, why would one present either of these facts in a given context?

Or an example of indifference: if someone says, "I don't care about Biden's capability to serve as President," does their indifference suggest a lack of bias? Is it more or less biased than, "I think it's bad that Biden is President given his apparent senility."? Is it more or less biased than, "I think it's good that Biden is President given his apparent senility."?

Biases are simply different or the same, neither lesser nor greater. I don't know how I could even go about measuring bias without introducing bias.

Re: Grokipedia and the coup against reality

#147
post #141
post #41

[flagged]

It's not just Musk, of course; many people in his political realm do the same. You misunderstand what they're doing, which is why they're so successful and 'get away with it' endlessly. It looks like something you expect, but you're losing the game because you aren't even aware you're on the field playing. You'll notice their followers laugh about 'owning' you - what do they mean? To the (neo-reactionaries), words ar…

Of course, but at least one of the mechanisms by which those weapons work is to increase the number of people in society with a completely broken epistemology; i.e. they want to make more people stupid, because stupid people could go along with anything.

Re: Grokipedia and the coup against reality

#149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not really going to trust either one of them for the foreseeable future. Situation: there is one mediocre online crowdsourced encyclopedia "The crowdsourced encyclopedia is untrustworthy? How ridiculous! We need to develop an AI-powered black-box that replaces everyone's Wikipedia use-cases!" Soon: there is one mediocre online crowdsourced encyclopedia, and Elon Musk's website developed in response to crowdsour…

Maybe it will be a shot in arm for Wikipedia to make some needed reforms.

Probably not. Grokipedia's failure will validate Wikipedia's ban on spurious sources to enforce

We already have people reacting to completely incorrect AI-generated pages about their own lives: https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2025/10/28/Grokipedi...

Re: Grokipedia and the coup against reality

#150
post #66

I got the impression Grokipedia (what a lousy name, BTW; there's not a teenage rock band that would call itself that) has been trained on Wikipedia. I compared the entries for "Gallium Arsenide", and Grok's first sections is a copy of Wikipedia, with a an editor-like comment on top: Gallium arsenide Except where otherwise noted, data are given for materials in their standard state (at 25 °C [77 °F], 100 kPa). verify…

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