Tim Bray on Grokipedia

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tptacek ◴[31 Oct 25 21:53 UTC] No.45777117[source]▶

>>45777015 (OP) #

Why give it oxygen?

replies(6): >>45777142 #>>45777160 #>>45777311 #>>45777327 #>>45777329 #>>45777411 #

meowface ◴[31 Oct 25 21:59 UTC] No.45777160[source]▶

>>45777117 #

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 significantly more right-biased than Wikipedia is left-biased.

(Unfortunately, Reply-Grok may have been successfully partially lobotomized for the long term, now. At the time of writing, if you ask grok.com about the 2020 election it says Biden won and Trump's fraud claims are not substantiated and have no merit. If you @grok in a tweet it now says Trump's claims of fraud have significant merit, when previously it did not. Over the past few days I've seen it place way too much charity in right-wing framings in other instances, as well.)

replies(4): >>45777225 #>>45777240 #>>45777294 #>>45777386 #

1. tptacek ◴[31 Oct 25 22:09 UTC] No.45777240[source]▶

>>45777160 #

Wikipedia is probably in the running for one of the greatest contributions to public knowledge of the past 100 years, and that's a consequence of how it functions, warts and all. I don't care how good Grok is or isn't. I'm a fan of frontier model LLMs. They don't meaningfully replace Wikipedia.

replies(3): >>45777432 #>>45777452 #>>45778125 #

2. meowface ◴[31 Oct 25 22:33 UTC] No.45777432[source]▶

>>45777240 (TP) #

I fully agree. Even assuming no forced ideological bias from Elon, I doubt it would be nearly as good. I still thought it could be an interesting concept, even if I had very low hopes from the start.

3. physarum_salad ◴[31 Oct 25 22:35 UTC] No.45777452[source]▶

>>45777240 (TP) #

"Warts and all" says it all really. What are those warts? Who's responsibility are they?

Wikipedia is really not ideal for the LLM age where multiple perspectives can be rapidly generated. There are many topics where clusters of justified true beliefs and reasonable arguments may ALL be valid surrounding a certain topic. And no I am not talking about "flat earth" pages or other similar nonsense.

replies(1): >>45781083 #

4. onetimeusename ◴[01 Nov 25 00:16 UTC] No.45778125[source]▶

>>45777240 (TP) #

What percent of edits on Wikipedia do you think are done by LLMs presently? It looks like there is a guide for detecting them https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Signs_of_AI_writing . The way Wikipedia functions, LLMs can make edits. They can be detected, but unless you are saying they are useless I don't know what point you are making about an LLM contribution versus a human. That LLMs aren't good enough to make meaningful contributions yet?? That Grok is specifically the problem?

5. thrance ◴[01 Nov 25 12:21 UTC] No.45781083[source]▶

>>45777452 #

Do list these "alternative perspectives" that Wikipedia is allegedly unfairly silencing.

replies(1): >>45781675 #

6. physarum_salad ◴[01 Nov 25 13:55 UTC] No.45781675{3}[source]▶

>>45781083 #

The fact you think there are none is really hilarious!

replies(1): >>45782788 #

7. thrance ◴[01 Nov 25 16:08 UTC] No.45782788{4}[source]▶

>>45781675 #

The fact you're still eluding isn't very funny though. Please share just one, that we may discuss it.

replies(1): >>45790821 #