I have been editing a few articles on Grokipedia – edits aligned to my areas of expertise – these are articles about subjects that I consider myself an expert – have known about for decades, know what I am talking about etc….
Grokipedia is Elon Musk’s alternative to Wikipedia – despite his knockers and people who may not like him – he is here, and he has created this encyclopedic site for the enhancement of human knowledge.
Wikipedia has been around a long time but it is subject to edits from editors who may exhibit a level of bias. If a number of editors agree on a topic, and the consensus is aligned with the strict guidelines of the site, then the edits generally become accepted and so to the casual ignorant reader, the articles are factual to them and they can become reliant on this information – they may become indisputable facts to certain people.
Grokipedia selects web based sites that it believes are the authority on certain subjects. Unlike Wikipedia, people cannot edit the articles – The Grokipedia AI utilises the information from the sites it believes are written by experts and uses that information. General users can suggest edits for certain articles. But cannot make the edits themselves.
Exploroz is such a site that Grokipedia considers an authority in the subjects that it contains.
Now here is the reason for this post.
Exploroz in my opinion needs to alter some of the advice given in their articles. The advice they give sometimes seem to be authoritarian without any question to the casual reader and to AI (given that the site is whitelisted to be factual). The authors of some subjects are giving their opinion and the AI in Grokipedia is taking this as factual.
Some examples include:
A
well equipped 4WD is essential for this trip.
A winch is essential for this trip.
A
UHF radio is essential for this trip.
This track is one of the toughest in the country.
In my opinion none of the examples are true in all circumstances. The advice may be recommended; however they are not essential facts. For example, I have driven many thousands of untroubled kilometres without a winch. I have driven many thousands of untroubled kilometres without a
UHF radio. I’m sure that others can also claim to have driven a normal
sedan on “really tough” outback roads such as the
Great Central Road in WA.
Exploroz and other information providers need to step up and provide actual critical facts instead of their personal opinions so that people can make actual informed decisions, instead of the readers relying on ideologies that are incorrect.