Podcast Summary: The 404 Media Podcast – "Grokipedia Is Cringe"

Date: October 29, 2025
Hosts: Joseph, Sam Cole, Emanuel Maiberg, Jason Koebler

Overview

In this episode, the 404 Media team dives deep into the launch and politics of Grokipedia—Elon Musk’s purported Wikipedia competitor built with AI, reflecting a particular ideological slant. They compare and contrast it to Wikipedia and Conservapedia, considering the broader cultural and political context of attempts to reframe the way knowledge is collected and presented online. The team also covers the looming e-waste crisis stemming from Microsoft's aggressive push away from Windows 10, sharing personal anecdotes and insights about the evolution of operating systems.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

Housekeeping, Plugs, and Community Updates

• Merch Update: Jason discusses the process of restocking and individually mailing out 404 Media merch, highlighting the hands-on nature of the operation.

  "Honestly, it involves me printing out many labels and sticking them on these green envelopes...digging through boxes and seeing what people ordered. It’s a lot of work. But I do have it down." – Jason (01:11)

• Book Shoutouts:
  • Joseph’s book about an FBI sting via encrypted phones is coming out in paperback (includes more interviews and an expansion) — with a discount code for listeners (Wire20).
  • Emmanuel recommends Becky Ferreira’s book, First: The Story of Our Obsession With Aliens, calling it a beautifully written anthropological look at alien obsession. (03:25)

Grokipedia: Elon Musk’s “Anti-Wikipedia”

What Is Grokipedia?

• Jason summarizes Grokipedia as a black-background, minimalist lookalike of Wikipedia, built entirely with AI:

  "It’s Elon Musk’s butt hurt competitor...He calls it a competitor to Wikipedia, which he calls Wokipedia. Basically it is an LLM that calls itself an encyclopedia...explicitly an ideological project of Elon Musk to de-wokeify Wikipedia." – Jason (05:52)

• Unlike traditional Wikipedia, Grokipedia content is static and AI-generated (“not like a chatbot”), but lacks depth, internal links, and contains notable right-wing bias.

  "There is a right-wing slant specifically, and it has been programmed to have a right-wing slant." – Jason (09:10)

Quality and Structure

• Grokipedia’s articles are “surface level, extraordinarily surface level,” and often excessively long.

  "Every single article is extraordinarily long...It’s just super surface level in my opinion." – Jason (09:57)

• There are hallucinations and factual errors, but overtly political articles exhibit the most bias — e.g., entries referring to trans women as “biological males.”

  "...exactly what you would expect from a Grokipedia or one leaning in that direction..." – Joseph (10:41)

Comparison to Wikipedia and Conservapedia

• Wikipedia’s strength is its collaborative, international, and nuanced editing process. In contrast:

  "Grokipedia is entirely AI generated...not like Wikipedia at all in terms of form or function." – Jason (06:38)

• The team discusses the recurring urge, especially among ideologically motivated actors, to fork Wikipedia—referencing Conservapedia as an earlier far-right project.

  "It's funny, there have been...many, many attempts to make an alternative [to Wikipedia]...often like people who were Wikipedia editors for a long time...trying to insert insane shit into specific articles...then they do it and no one does it and no one goes there." – Jason (17:30)

Political and Cultural Context

• Wikipedia faces increasingly vocal criticism from American conservatives and lawmakers, leading to discussions about moving Wikimedia events outside the US due to mounting political hostility.

  "Republicans in particular have turned their sights on it...for years, like rich and powerful people have not liked how they are portrayed on Wikipedia..." – Jason (12:42)

• The collaborative and human labor aspects of Wikipedia give it resilience; Grokipedia, by contrast, is seen as "extremely low effort."

  "...the biggest group project in the history of humankind...The fact that human beings are maintaining this makes it this incredibly human thing." – Jason (20:33)

Notable Quotes

• "Reality has a left leaning bias because...it’s just based on reality and real things and science..." – Joseph (11:12)
• "It’s surface-level, AI-generated content masquerading as an encyclopedia—nothing that can replace what genuine, human-edited knowledge projects like Wikipedia have built." – Jason (20:33)

Timestamps

• Introduction & Merch: 00:00–02:25
• Grokipedia Discussion Begins: 04:57
• Grokipedia’s Structure and Bias: 05:40–10:41
• Comparison with Conservapedia: 16:04–19:04
• On Wikipedia’s Human Value: 20:12–22:23

Windows 10 "End of Life" and E-Waste Concerns

Personal Experiences Updating (or Not)

• Emanuel talks about the technical challenges in upgrading, including obscure hardware requirements (TPM 2.0) and frustrating BIOS updates:

  "My computer started crashing...Windows 11 only works with TPM 2.0...I had to update my motherboard [and] BIOS..." – Emanuel (27:42)

• Sam details receiving persistent prompts to update and finally acquiescing (noting the UI change as the biggest difference).

  "It finally got me...I didn’t want to have an unupdated PC..." – Sam (29:25)

Why People Love Windows 10

• Both emphasize its stability and reliability, calling it “the most stable [Windows] I’ve ever used.”

  "It works, it does what you want it to do, it doesn’t crash...super stable." – Emanuel (30:42)

Linux as an Alternative?

• Discussion of Linux as the likely (but technically fraught) alternative for unsupported machines, especially those affected by new hardware requirements.

  "A lot of people commented on that story...‘well, can’t you simply move to Linux?’...but it’s not as easy at scale—schools and agencies are bound by regulations and contracts." – Jason (34:22)

• Joseph and the team riff on the pain points of Linux for everyday users (and reminisce about old ThinkPads).

The Looming E-Waste Crisis

• Jason notes the scale: potentially 400 million PCs rendered obsolete, mostly due to upgradable but unsupported hardware.

  "A lot of computers...are either owned by people who don’t update their hardware very often or enterprise buyers bound...by different contracts..." – Jason (36:44)

Notable Quotes

• "[Upgrading to Windows 11] is the most aggressive transition that I think I’ve seen the company make." – Emanuel (27:42)
• "What are they going to become—scrap landfill, Linux machines without Wi-Fi or audio?" – Joseph (36:44)

Timestamps

• Windows 10 EOL Discussion Begins: 26:35
• Personal Upgrade Stories: 26:52–31:05
• Linux & E-Waste: 31:19–37:29

Memorable Moments & Quotes

• "People need clothes, you know?" – Joseph, on the stability of the merch business (02:23)
• "Amen." – Emanuel, on reading Conservapedia’s religious-tinged anxiety entry (19:04)
• "What does Grokipedia call [the ThinkPad red dot]? Conservapedia is not fucking touching that." – Joseph (33:47)
• "Get a PC dude. Get good. Build it." – Sam, to Joseph (37:25)

Conclusion

This episode offers a thorough, irreverent, but deeply informed discussion on the politics of digital knowledge bases, the drain of AI-driven vanity projects, and the unintended fallout from tech giants pushing users off stable platforms. The team blends personal anecdotes, historical context, and sharp humor to frame the growing rifts in digital information and the very real environmental impacts of planned software obsolescence.

Key Segments

• Grokipedia vs Wikipedia: 04:57–22:23
• Windows 10, Linux, and E-Waste: 26:35–37:29

Further Listening

404 Media subscribers get access to a bonus segment discussing A16Z and the drive toward a fully AI-generated Internet.
Subscribe at 404media.co for more.