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Tim Bray on Grokipedia

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Re: Tim Bray on Grokipedia

#51

Post by LastTrain »

meowface wrote: post #4
tptacek wrote: post #2

Why give it oxygen?

To play devil's advocate: Grok has historically actually been one of the biggest debunkers of right-wing misinformation and conspiracy theories on Twitter, contrary to popular conception. Elon keeps trying to tweak its system prompt to make it less effective at that, but Grokipedia was worth an initial look from me out of curiosity. It took me 10 seconds to realize it was ideologically-motivated garbage and significa…

“ Grok has historically actually been one of the biggest debunkers of right-wing misinformation and conspiracy theories on Twitter”

Well, no, it hasn’t. It has debunked some things. It has made some incorrect shit up. But it isn’t historically one of the “biggest debunkers” of anything. Do we only speak hyperbole now?

Re: Tim Bray on Grokipedia

#52

Post by Take8435 »

mlmonkey wrote: post #28
podgietaru wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Believe it or not, me (not white, did not grow up in the West, had the faintest clue about Nazism) used to do what you would consider a "Nazi salute" when I'd see friends and wave to them from a distance. I don't know how I picked that up but it happened. I'm not saying that Musk is doing the same; but that one can be charitable and say he probably did not mean that. I mean, what does he stand to gain from doing so?…

> had the faintest clue about Nazism

Whew lad. This tells me all we need to know. "I don't know nothing but folks gotta listen to my opinion!"

Re: Tim Bray on Grokipedia

#53

Post by wtfwhateven »

bawolff wrote: post #33
mlmonkey wrote: post #22

[flagged]

People who say these types of things should link their wikipedia user account so we could see why they were banned and if it really was so unreasonable.

They never do even when asked. Happy to be proven wrong this time of course.

Re: Tim Bray on Grokipedia

#55

Post by exe34 »

judah wrote: post #38
podgietaru wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The ADL, the left-wing Jewish human rights group not aligned with Musk in the slightest, called out that Musk's gesture was merely an awkward salutation, not a Nazi seig heil[0]. [0]: https://www.jta.org/2025/01/21/politics/how-did-the-adl-conc...

The left wing Jewish human rights group isn't the arbiter of what a nazi salute is. Actual Nazis around the world took it as a nod towards their ideology, and he's desperately trying to start a civil war in the UK, so I would say it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck.

Re: Tim Bray on Grokipedia

#56

Post by jameslk »

Wikipedia is a great educational resource and one I've donated to for over a decade. That said, I like the idea of Grokipedia in the sense that it's another potential source I can look at for more information and get multiple perspectives. If there's anything factual in Grokipedia that Wikipedia is missing, Wikipedia can be updated to include it

I hope we can keep growing freely available sources of information. Even if some of that information is incorrect or flat out manipulative. This isn't anything new. It's what the web has always been

Re: Tim Bray on Grokipedia

#57

Post by pstuart »

bawolff wrote: post #30
pstuart wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem of debunking right-wing misinformation is that it doesn't seem to matter. The consumers of that misinformation want it and those of us who think it's bad for society already know that its garbage. It feels like we've reached Peak Stupidity but it's clear it can (and likely will) get much worse with AI videos.

I think there is a problem sometimes that "debunkers" are often more interested in scoring points with secondary audiences (i.e. people who already agree with them) than actually convincing the people who believe the misinformation. Most people who believe bullshit were convinced by something. It might not have been fully rational but there is usually a kernel of something there that triggered that belief. They also…

"You cannot reason a person out of a position he did not reason himself into in the first place."

Fox (and others like it) offer 24/7 propaganda based on fear and anger, repeating lies ad nauseam. It's highly effective -- I've seen the results first-had.

Making ad hominem attacks against "debunkers" doesn't make your case.

And again, trying to change people's minds by telling them what they believe is wrong is a fools errand (99.99% of the time). But it still needs to happen as that misinformation should not go unchallenged.

Re: Tim Bray on Grokipedia

#58

Post by kvirani »

jayd16 wrote: post #24
meowface wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To play devil's advocate: Grok has historically actually been one of the biggest debunkers of right-wing misinformation and conspiracy theories on Twitter, contrary to popular conception. Elon keeps trying to tweak its system prompt to make it less effective at that, but Grokipedia was worth an initial look from me out of curiosity. It took me 10 seconds to realize it was ideologically-motivated garbage and significa…

It's not controlled by a trusted actor so it doesn't matter how it happens to act at the moment. They could pull the rug at any future time and its almost better to gain trust now and cash in that trust later.

And the idea of it being controlled by any one entity makes it less interesting and less "good" when compared to Wikipedia

Re: Tim Bray on Grokipedia

#59

Post by __s »

generationP wrote: post #25

Wondering if the project will get better from the pushback or will just be folded like one of Elon's many ADHD experiments. In a sense, encyclopedias should be easy for LLMs: they are meant to survey and summarize well-documented material rather than contain novel insights; they are often imprecise and muddled already (look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_tree and see how many conventions coexist without an e…

> can probably be used to shame the WP into cleaning their shit up

what if your goal is for wikipedia to be biased in your favor?

Re: Tim Bray on Grokipedia

#60

Post by bebb »

tptacek wrote: post #2

Why give it oxygen?

Because it's a genuinely good idea, and hopefully one for which the execution will be improved upon over time.

In theory, using LLMs to summarize knowledge could produce a less biased and more comprehensive output than human-written encyclopedias.

Whether Grokipedia will meet that challenge remains to be seen. But even if it doesn't, there's opportunity for other prospective encyclopedia generators to do so.

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