What is Elon Musk’s new vision for humanity’s knowledge after launching Grokipedia? The billionaire proposes a cosmic preservation plan

Milken Institute
Milken Institute's Global Conference Held In Beverly Hills - Source: Getty

On October 27, Elon Musk unveiled the first version of Grokipedia, an open-source encyclopedia that he pushed as an alternative to Wikipedia. The tech billionaire has now proposed a new cosmic plan to preserve the "collection of knowledge." On Tuesday, Elon Musk shared a post on X and stated that his plan is to "etch" the "comprehensive collection of all knowledge" in "stable oxide" and place those copies across space.

"Nice work by the @xAI team on Grokipedia.com! The goal here is to create an open source, comprehensive collection of all knowledge. Then place copies of that etched in a stable oxide in orbit, the Moon and Mars to preserve it for the future... Foundation," Musk posted.

Hours later, Elon Musk shared another post in which he shared a screenshot of a report from The Times. The report talked about Musk's recent contribution for the "Vesuvius Challenge." For context, this challenge is an effort to decode the Herculaneum scrolls that had been carbonized due to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.

Musk hinted at the risk of knowledge wiping out due to similar instances and said that spreading knowledge across the solar system will protect it from "civilizational regression."

"The sum of knowledge etched by laser into stone in micro font and placed throughout the solar system will protect against a civilizational regression," Musk tweeted.

Elon Musk released the initial version of Grokipedia?

Following the initial announcement of Wikipedia's alternative last month, Elon Musk finally unveiled Grokipedia on Monday. The SpaceX founder announced the release via an X post. The billionaire, who is a vocal critic of Wikipedia, took a shot at the community-edited platform while unveiling his alternative.

"Grokipedia.com version 0.1 is now live. Version 1.0 will be 10X better, but even at 0.1 it’s better than Wikipedia imo." Musk tweeted.

In a subsequent tweet, he shared that the new AI-based platform is "fully open source" and has no cost.

Musk shared about this beta release in October. xAI's founder has been pitching Grok and Grokipedia as truth-seeking platforms. Hours after the release of Musk's open-source platform, a user shared the difference between the responses of Wikipedia and Musk's encyclopedia. The billionaire reposted the tweet while writing,

"The goal of Grok and Grokipedia.com is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. We will never be perfect, but we shall nonetheless strive towards that goal."

In his October 18 tweet, Musk wrote that his team would be open to critical feedback on his platform's initial version.

Also read: “We have indeed infantilized businesses”: Elon Musk takes a jab at Corporate Culture after Grok AI’s ‘Kids Mode’ reveal

Edited by Sohini Biswas