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What Next | Wikipedia Enters the Culture Wars

Slate News

Slate Podcasts

News, News Commentary, Politics

4.66K Ratings

🗓️ 13 November 2025

⏱️ 27 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Why would Elon Musk attempt to replace Wikipedia—which is already quite futuristic, utopian and accurate—with a faulty, hallucinatory A.I.-powered “Grokipedia”? Well, see, he called it “Wokepedia…” Guest: Stephen Harrison, writer, tech lawyer, author of “Why Editing Wikipedia Is Becoming More Dangerous” for Slate and The Editors, a novel about Wikipedia. Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Have you ever wondered what a sandwich sounds like?

0:04.0

Not much to it is there?

0:06.0

Unless of course it's a Walker's sandwich.

0:11.0

Mmm, that is good.

0:13.0

Now that's what Asani should sound like.

0:15.0

Go all crisp in with walkers.

0:18.0

Delicious.

0:27.0

I called up Stephen Harrison because he has spent a whole lot of time

0:29.4

trying to understand something that I do not.

0:33.1

Elon Musk's new AI-generated encyclopedia.

0:38.3

I have spent a fair amount of time on Grogapedia, and it's pretty interesting, I have to tell you.

0:45.2

Was this delightful time? Did you enjoy your time on Grapaedia?

0:49.4

I groaned a few times, I have to say, you know, sometimes the Garcopedia article goes longer and it introduces

0:55.2

sort of AI-generated hallucinations. And I'm just like, wow, how is this happening? A hallucinating

1:01.5

encyclopedia, not exactly what I'm looking for when I'm doing the research. Right. No, it's

1:07.0

definitely not like an alternative encyclopedia, really. It's got a lot of flaws.

1:12.4

Stephen's area of expertise is Wikipedia, so it's possible he's slightly biased here.

1:18.2

But his criticisms are not small ones.

1:20.9

Take, for example, those hallucinations.

1:23.7

It adds details like, for example, if you look up a journalist, I've been looking at different journalists, and it'll just randomly say that they live in New York.

1:31.5

So it just assumes like you're a coastal elite, essentially, if you write words.

1:35.4

Exactly, right, yeah.

...

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