Grokipedia is here, like it or not

PLUS: Amazon to axe 14K corporate jobs

AuthorAuthor

Jennifer Mossalgue & Rowan Cheung
October 28, 2025

Good morning, tech enthusiasts. Elon Musk’s xAI just rolled out Grokipedia, an AI-forged remix of Wikipedia and his latest move to upend how “neutral” knowledge gets made online.

The site so far features skeletal entries, minimal design, and a mysterious edit system with no names attached. Musk calls it already better than Wikipedia — but what’s really under the hood?

In today’s tech rundown:

  • Elon Musk’s Grokipedia is here

  • Amazon to slash 14K corporate jobs

  • ChatGPT’s accidental suicide hotline problem

  • Tesla’s end-to-end AI for robotaxis, robots

  • Quick hits on other tech news

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

XAI

Image source. xAI

The Rundown: Elon Musk’s xAI just launched Grokipedia, a Wikipedia-like encyclopedia and the latest salvo in Musk's culture war against perceived "woke bias" — but it appears to be built on the bones of the very platform he's trying to replace.

The details:

  • Version 0.1 surfaced more than 885K articles by Monday evening, versus Wikipedia’s 7+ million in English; Musk says rapid iterations are forthcoming.

  • The site ships with a stark, search-first UI and bare-bones entries that mimic Wikipedia’s structure — yet so far, little to no imagery.

  • Editing remains gated: an "Edit" button materializes on select pages only, revealing a changelog of completed edits stripped of clear attribution.

  • Musk is pitching a fast update: a 1.0 “10X better” release, with the claim that the current site already beats Wikipedia.

Why it matters: Musk positions Grokipedia as an AI‑led, less‑biased alternative that will “pursue the truth,” reflecting his critiques of Wikipedia’s alleged left-wing tilt.​ Yet the launch leans heavily on Wikipedia’s look and content — and is sometimes cited as ‘adapted’ from it. Plus, Grok’s “fact-checking” claim raises some practical questions.

AMAZON

Image source: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0

The Rundown: Amazon is set to cut 14K corporate roles starting Tuesday — below the 30K initially reported but still a major downsizing as CEO Andy Jassy's cost-cutting campaign continues. Notifications arrive via email.

The details:

  • The retail giant’s last major round of job cuts was at the end of 2022 and into 2023, when 27K positions were axed.

  • Leadership is selling the cuts as cost-cutting and a correction to pandemic-era bloat, while flattening management hierarchies that inflated over the years.

  • Initial reports stated that 14K roles get eliminated now, with another wave likely hitting in January once the holiday crunch ends, which Amazon refutes.

  • HR, Devices & Services, and Operations take the heaviest hits as Amazon redirects capital toward data centers and generative AI infrastructure.

Why it matters: CEO Andy Jassy has been telegraphing this for months, telling staffers in June that generative AI would mean "fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today." Slashing thousands of corporate staff certainly gets the message across that Amazon thinks AI infrastructure matters more than headcount.

OPENAI

Image source: Creative Commons Attribution 2.0

The Rundown: OpenAI just released new data showing just how many ChatGPT users are in crisis: 0.15% of weekly active users have conversations flagging explicit suicidal planning or intent. With 800M weekly users, that's over a million people every week.

The details:

  • Another 0.15% display what OpenAI calls "heightened emotional attachment" to ChatGPT, while hundreds of thousands more exhibit signs of psychosis.

  • OpenAI says it brought in over 170 mental health experts to vet the updates, who found ChatGPT now "responds more appropriately” than earlier versions.

  • ChatGPT's default GPT-5 model now includes upgraded distress detection designed to de-escalate and funnel users toward crisis resources, OpenAI says.

  • OpenAI cites that high-risk conversations get rerouted to safer models, while marathon chat sessions trigger gentle "take a break" prompts.

Why it matters: OAI is playing therapist-by-proxy at an unprecedented scale, deploying triage protocols, such as crisis hotline redirects and pathways for high-risk users, while insisting ChatGPT isn't a substitute for mental health professionals. But millions in suicidal crisis are already treating it like one, and that’s not likely to change.

TESLA

Image source: Tesla / X

The Rundown: Tesla's AI chief revealed at ICCV how the company's camera-only FSD system processes massive fleet data through end-to-end neural nets to control vehicles, with plans to use the same brain for both robotaxis and Optimus robots.

The details:

  • Tesla's approach is pure vision: millions of cars feeding multi-camera data into a neural net that outputs direct driving commands.

  • The system includes "auxiliary heads" that expose its reasoning process, plus real-time 3D scene reconstruction that maps the world as it drives.

  • A learned world simulator generates rare, dangerous scenarios, like pedestrians darting into traffic, that could take years to capture naturally.

  • Tesla plans to scale the same neural architecture globally for robotaxis and port it directly to the Optimus humanoid.

Why it matters: A single vision‑only brain trained on millions of real‑world drives could let Tesla ship one model that powers robotaxis today and humanoids tomorrow. But if camera‑only perception and simulated edge cases miss safety‑critical failures, those blind spots won’t just affect cars but every Optimus that steps onto a factory floor.

QUICK HITS

PayPal struck a partnership with OpenAI to embed its wallet in ChatGPT, enabling instant in-chat checkout with buyer/seller protections, plus card payment processing.

Apple says it will soon let U.S. iPhone users create a passport‑based Digital ID in Apple Wallet for use at select TSA checkpoints.

Swiss drugmaker Novartis will acquire U.S. biotech Avidity Biosciences for about $12B in cash to bolster its pipeline of therapies for rare muscle disorders.

Apple is planning to place ads on Apple Maps next year, letting local businesses buy search placement, Bloomberg reports.

Qualcomm unveiled new AI accelerator chips to challenge Nvidia, sending its shares up 11% on Monday.

X is killing off Twitter.com and forcing users who log in with hardware security keys or passkeys to re‑enroll those credentials by November 10.

Satya Nadella’s pay jumped 22% to $96.5M — about $84M in performance stock and ~$9.5M in cash — even as Microsoft cut more than 15K jobs this year.

Instagram now lets you revisit previously watched Reels with a new Watch History feature, catching up to TikTok’s long-standing version.

Threads is rolling out “ghost posts,” disappearing updates that auto‑archive after 24 hours to encourage more unfiltered sharing without the pressure of permanence.

Google is releasing a redesigned Fitbit app anchored by a Gemini‑powered Personal Health Coach that adapts plans to your progress and surfaces smarter weekly insights.

OnePlus launched the OnePlus 15 in China with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and a 165Hz display, promising a global rollout “soon” after months of teasers.

OpenAI will make its sub-$5 ChatGPT Go plan free for one year to new and existing users in India during a limited-time promo starting November 4.

China unveiled BI Explorer (BIE‑1), a desk‑side “brain‑like” computing device that its developers tout as the world’s first supercomputer that can fit under a desk.

COMMUNITY

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Rowan, Jennifer, and Joey—The Rundown’s editorial team

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