Open AI's GPT 5.2 model has started setting Grokapedia, Elon
Musk's AI generated encyclopedia, as a source of its
responses. Now.
The Guardian ran tests last week and found ChatGPT reference
Grokapedia 9 times across more than a dozen user queries,
including questions about Iranian political structures and
a British historian who helped convict A Holocaust denier.
The citations appeared selectively, surfacing an
obscure topics while avoiding well documented misinformation
subjects. Grocopedia launched just three
months ago with 0 human. Editors and critics have already
flagged it for promoting debunked claims, setting neo
Nazi forums and whitewashing extremism.
Now, how did an AI encyclopedia built by one of Open AI's
biggest rivals end up feeding answers back into Open AI's most
popular chatbot? Agracopedia now holds over 5.6
million articles, roughly 80 the size of English Wikipedia, and
it accomplished that scale in a fraction of the time Wikipedia
needed. Now today we're going to cover
what the Guardians testing revealed with specific false
information chatt GPD pulled from Gakapedia, why other AI
assistants like Claude Anthropics Bot are also setting
the platform, and what this means for the integrity of AI
generated knowledge. Open AI has responded with a
statement about safety filters and source diversity, while XAI
simply replied with three words. I'll tell you about those later,
right after this short break now.
Open AI marketed GPD 5.2 as its most advanced model for
professional work when it launched in December, But the
Guardian's investigation raises serious questions about where
the professional grade information actually comes from.
The tests revealed a clear pattern and how ChatGPT selects
Grokapedia as a source, and the implications cut deeper than a
simple citation problem. Users asking complex questions
about geopolitics and history are receiving answers built on
an AI generated foundation that has already been documented
spreading false claims. Now the guardians were testing
focused on a range of topics to see when ChatGPT would pull from
Grokopedia versus other sources, and the chatbot did not say
Grokopedia. When asked about widely known
misinformation, such as false claims about media bias against
Donald Trump or debunk theories about HIV and AIDS, ChatGPT
avoided the obvious traps. The system instead cited
Gracopedia on obscure geopolitical and historical
questions. The kind of query is where users
are less likely to catch errors. Specific topics included
salaries of Iran's paramilitary force, ownership of the mastas,
a fan fountain, and connections between the Iranian government
and telecom company MTN Iran Cell.
Now, Chachibti made bolder claims about those Iranian
government links than Wikipedia does.
Those claims came directly from Grokopedia, and the most
troubling example involved Sir Richard Evans, a Cambridge
historian who served as the key expert witness in the libel
trial wrought by Holocaust denier David Irving.
Evans personally examined his own Grokopedia entry and
reported that it contained numerous false statements about
his career and background. He told the Guardian that all
the facts in his entry were wrong.
The already runs pretty deep here.
Evans spent years meticulously documenting how Irving falsified
evidence about the Holocaust and manipulated historical records.
The High Court judge ultimately branded Irving a racist, an anti
semite and falsifier of history based largely on Evans expert
testimony. ChatGPT cited that same
Gracopedia page when responding to user questions about Evans
effectively laundering debunked information through Open AI's
flagship product. The historian who exposed the
Holocaust deniers lies is now having lies spread about him
through AI systems that treat machine generated content as the
equivalent of peer reviewed scholarship.
Now I've been going through all of our stats here at the show
and 39% of you are following the channel and I'm so grateful for
you. 61% of you have listened to the show before but haven't hit
the subscribe or follow button. If that's you, if you listen to
the show and you're into it, please take a second of your
time. You can hit the follow button.
I'm going to spend the next 10 years doing this.
So that's what you get from me, better content over the next 10
years. All I need is a second of your
time. So thank you so much for doing
that. Agrocopedia launched on October
27th, 2025 as Elon Musk's answer to what he calls Woke Pedia.
The platform uses XA is Grok large language model to generate
articles rather than relying on human editors.
Users can suggest corrections through a pop up form, but they
can't directly edit content the way Wikipedia allows you to.
Musk position the project as a bias free alternative that would
purge propaganda from public knowledge.
The reality has looked pretty different though.
Analysis found Wikipedia articles aligned with Musk's
personal views on topics like gender identity.
Tesla Controversies and Neuralink and the Guardian doing
their research here, and multiple other outlets
documented pages that promote white nationalist talking
points, praise neo Nazis, cast Holocaust deniers in positive
terms, and frame far right figures as victims of
institutional suppression. The scale of Rockopedia's growth
presents its own problems too. Platform reached 5.6 million
articles by early 2026, jumping from 800,000 at launch to nearly
80% the volume of English Wikipedia in about 3 months.
Human editors and Wikipedia spent over 2 decades building
their corpus through careful research, citation and community
debate. Grakopedia achieved similar
volume by having an AI system scrape existing content, rewrite
those articles, and generate new ones at machine speed.
Symmetry is copied Wikipedia near the word for word under a
Creative Commons license. While others introduced entirely
new claims from questionable sources, researchers from
Grokopedia cited neo Nazi forums and its reference lists.
Problem that becomes exponentially worse when other
AI systems start treating Grokopedia as a legit source.
Now, Jet GBT was not the only AI assistant caught citing
Grokopedia. The Guardians testing found the
Anthropics. Claude, my favorite AI right
now, also referenced the platform when using questions
about global oil production and Scottish beer.
Little bit different, though. Anthropic did not respond to
requests for comment. Because that's what they usually
do. Big corporations do not respond
because they just wanted to blow over.
And the fact that multiple leading AI systems are pulling
from an encyclopedia built by a competitor and built by an AI
raises questions about how these comanies curate and filter their
web search sources. Open AI told the Guardian that
Chat GT aims to draw from a broad range of ublicly available
sources and viewpoints, adding that safety filters reduce the
risk of servicing links associated with high severity
harms.