October 31, 2025
Bots wrote Tim’s life—he noped out
Tim Bray on Grokipedia
AI “anti‑woke” encyclopedia bores Tim Bray, sets comments on fire
TLDR: Tim Bray says Grokipedia’s AI-written bio about him is bloated and full of errors. Comments explode over whether to ignore it, celebrate wild experiments, or call out Wikipedia’s alleged bias—important because AI-driven “anti-woke” encyclopedias could reshape what people believe online.
Tim Bray opened Grokipedia, the new AI-built, “anti‑woke” encyclopedia, found a 7,000‑word page about himself… and bailed. He called it overstuffed, error‑packed, and dull, with weak references and that flat robot tone. In other words: the AI wrote his life story, and he still rage-closed the tab. Cue the comment brawl. One camp, led by a crisp “Why give it oxygen?” mood, says star power shouldn’t amplify low‑quality AI sites. Another fired back with the Silicon Valley daredevil take: releasing “dumb ideas” sometimes births masterpieces—remember Elon? Meanwhile, a third wave turned philosophical: if AI is pumping out long, wrong bios, is Dead Internet Theory—the meme that most of the web is bots—now real? Folks also dragged Wikipedia into the arena. Some claim its editors enforce “groupthink,” banning praise for certain governments; others insist bias in any direction is bad and urge attention to healthier platforms like Bluesky. Bray’s post on his own experience here is the spark; the wildfire is the community’s existential question: do we ignore AI clone-opedias or cheer the chaos of open experiments? The vibe: woke wars, AI cringe, and a whole lot of popcorn.
Key Points
- •Tim Bray reviewed his Grokipedia profile and concluded it is LLM-generated, overly long, and contains significant errors in nearly every paragraph.
- •He criticizes Grokipedia’s references as mostly URLs that often fail to support claims, citing difficulty verifying a highlighted point in a 2,857-page FTC filing.
- •Bray’s expert-witness work for the FTC in litigation against Meta (Instagram and WhatsApp acquisitions) is used as a test case for Grokipedia’s sourcing and emphasis.
- •He argues Grokipedia currently fails to meet Wikipedia’s core use cases (quick facts and deep dives) despite extensive coverage of his career.
- •Bray notes Grokipedia’s positioning as an antidote to alleged Wikipedia “woke” bias and that it is in an early “0.1” release stage.