My take

I've been watching xAI's attempts to build an open, AI-curated knowledge base with cautious interest. The idea of a crowdsourced, LLM-assisted encyclopedia that anyone can edit through natural language sounds compelling on paper. But the execution has been underwhelming. The platform hasn't received meaningful content updates in months, and the articles that do exist feel thin, inconsistently sourced, and occasionally riddled with hallucinated details that would never survive a day on Wikipedia.

What frustrates me most is the missed opportunity. A real-time, AI-assisted knowledge graph that pulls from live data sources could genuinely outperform the traditional Wikipedia model for speed and breadth. Instead, we're getting a half-baked side project that looks more like a vanity exercise than a serious competitor to the encyclopedia that's been maintained by thousands of volunteer editors for over two decades.

The core issues I see:

• Update cadence is basically zero. When was the last substantive commit? The silence speaks volumes about resource allocation.
• Content depth is shallow. Articles cover surface-level topics but lack the sourcing rigor and inline citations that make Wikipedia trustworthy.
• No clear editorial standards. Without transparent guidelines on what gets included, how fact-checking works, and how conflicts are resolved, the platform drifts into unreliable territory fast.
• Dependency on a single company's priorities. When the project's fate is tied to one person's whims and Twitter/X's shifting focus, sustainability is questionable.

For anyone interested in building or using AI-assisted knowledge bases, here's what I'd recommend watching instead — projects with active contributor communities, published update logs, and documented editorial policies. The real value in AI-powered encyclopedias won't come from flashy branding or celebrity backing. It'll come from consistent, boring, disciplined maintenance over years.

I'd love to hear if anyone else has tried using it recently and noticed any changes. Has there been activity I'm missing, or is it genuinely dormant?