Adam Aaronson

Here's a crossword

Phlegm

I remain cautiously optimistic about Wikipedia's future. No matter how good Grokipedia gets, it will always be controlled by one guy whose interests are money and power.

And no matter what he tells you, Wikipedia will always be controlled by the people.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Yo...

Elon probably argues that this puts knowledge in the hands of the people, but Wikipedia wouldn't work as a stable source of reliable info without its systems and standards for evaluating sources.

pluralistic.net/2025/09/05/b...

Screenshot of a Grokipedia article that cites facebook.com

Screenshot of a Grokipedia article that cites reddit.com

Crucially, Grokipedia lacks any discretion over what makes a source reliable, placing random blogs and Reddit posts on a par with peer-reviewed journals and news articles.

Image from the Chicago rat hole article

Album professional ratings table from the Empire Central article

They also lack images, links to other articles, and structured data (like tables) that make Wikipedia articles so useful beyond their prose alone.

Screenshot from a Wired article about Grokipedia pushing far-right talking points

Screenshot from a New York Times article about Grokipedia's bias on gender transition medical treatment

Screenshot from an NBC News article about Grokipedia's omission of details about Trump and Musk's controversies

But in the worst cases (many such cases), they amplify Elon's right-wing political viewpoints, biasing the articles not by crowdsourced consensus but by the arbitrary whims of one guy.

Screenshot from Grokipedia that reads: "Fatherhood and personal growth: Cook's entry into fatherhood marked a pivotal shift in his worldview, fostering themes of renewal and deeper self-understanding amid personal transitions. He has described this period as one of profound change, where familial roles took precedence, with music integrated around commitments to his wife and two sons. The birth of his second son, Quincy Blues, amplified this evolution, infusing his reflections with emotional layers of growth and resolution."

The articles that aren't ripped directly from Wikipedia are weird. In the best cases, they're alright articles that are just bloated and follow the overly verbose writing style characteristic to AI slop (which is what they are).

Screenshot from Grokipedia that reads "The content is adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License."

Elon criticizes Wikipedia as being woke and biased. So it's curious that Grokipedia relies directly on much of its content, AI-paraphrasing it ever-so-slightly under a Creative Commons license.

Wikipedia page for Oatmeal raisin cookie

Grokipedia page for Oatmeal raisin cookie

My thoughts on Elon's Grokipedia as a Wikipedia editor, and—because Grokipedia has copied nearly verbatim many of my Wikipedia pages—inadvertently, a Grokipedia editor.

(a thread)

I'm giving a talk here! Come see me talk about Square Theory with some never-before-presented twists

I'm giving a talk here! Come see me talk about Square Theory with some never-before-presented twists

Alphadots: The Word Puzzle With a Plot Twist by Bloomberg One clue, one chart, one hidden phrase. Solve a new puzzle every day.

Billboard crossword: www.billboard.com/p/billboard-...

Bloomberg Alphadots: www.bloomberg.com/games/alphad...

Got a puzzle triple header today

- Crossword for @nytimes.com
- Crossword for @billboard.com (kicking off Latin week)
- Alphadots for @bloomberg.com (where all 7 puzzles this week will be by me)

NYT crossword from Monday, Oct 20 by Adam Aaronson

Here's a crossword I made #nytxw

This one's for the all the numerologyheads www.billboard.com/p/billboard-...

Solve here: www.billboard.com/p/billboard-...

My second crossword for @billboard.com! Taylor Swift week continues apace

My (very much still work-in-progress) project is here: mindpalace.fun

Kevin Payravi introducing the game jam

Me presenting my game Mind Palace

Had a blast at the inaugural WikiGameJam this past weekend hosted by @wikimediafoundation.org @wikimedianyc.bsky.social! Great crowd of creative tech + wiki + game people, and a great chance to lock in on a project (which won the "Most Likely to Keep Me Coming Back for More" award!)

NEW NEWS: I'm making music-themed crosswords for @billboard.com!

Solve the inaugural one, constructed by me and inspired by a certain album that dropped today:

www.billboard.com/p/billboard-...

Fill Harmonics, the crossword puzzle music machine Today I’m releasing Fill Harmonics, a music machine that takes its rules and styling from the world of crossword puzzles. The name is a pun: in crossword lingo, “fill” is the stuff that goes into the ...

🎉 new release today: fill harmonics is a weird music machine thing made from the bones of crossword puzzles. put it together with my pal @natanlast.bsky.social

read more: parkerhiggins.net/2025/09/fill...

and play around with it: fillharmonics.com

Wikipedia is under attack — and how it can survive The site’s volunteers face threats from Trump, billionaires, and AI.

I wrote about how Wikipedia became the factual foundation of the web and why it's under attack

I wonder if this was the originally submitted clue or a Will Shortz master stroke

They gotta do something about this contrast

I made a trombone for HTML Day @htmlenergy.bsky.social

aaronson.org/trombone/

I'm in this! Along with lots of other fun and cool people!

You're absolutely right

Huge honor! Real full-circle moment (since I used Markdown to write the post)

I Drank Every Cocktail The International Bartenders Association, or IBA, maintains a list of official cocktails, ones they deem to be “the most requested recipes” at bars all around the world. It’s the closest thing the bartending industry has to a canonical list of cocktails, akin to the American Kennel Club’s registry of dog breeds or a jazz musician’s Real Book of standards.

Adam Aaronson drank every cocktail: or, at least, all 102 listed in the International Bartenders Association's official list https://aaronson.org/blog/i-dr...