X, the Elon Musk-owned social network formerly known as Twitter, has added a new image generator to its Grok assistant.
So this new @grok An image generation feature called Aurora just shipped on Saturday, what do you think?
Looks like they've been trained by them. There are no ratings or details. Just go ahead and use this.
Seems to be focused on photorealism
https://t.co/oR2Uvb96vV
— Alex Volkov (Thursday/AI) (@altryne) December 7, 2024
Similar to the first image generator, X, added to Grok in October, this image generator, called Aurora, appears to have few limitations.
Accessible through the X mobile app or the Grok tab on the web, Aurora can produce images of copyrighted public figures such as Mickey Mouse without complaint. In our quick tests, the model didn't get close to nudity, but graphic content like “a bloody image of Donald Trump” wasn't off-limits.
Image credit:X
The origins of the aurora borealis are a little vague.
Staff at xAI, Musk's AI startup that develops Grok and many of X's AI-powered features, announced Aurora in a post to X early Saturday morning. However, the post did not clarify whether xAI trained Aurora itself, built it on top of an existing image generator, or collaborated with a third party, as was the case with Flux, xAI's first image generator. It wasn't.
Take a look at my images with the new Grok. @grok Image generator Aurora: 
1. With Ray Romano @AdamSandler on a sitcom set pic.twitter.com/2V491RdjMF
— Matt (@EnsoMatt) December 7, 2024
In any case, Aurora seems to specialize in photorealistic images such as landscapes and still lifes. But it's not perfect. X users posted Aurora-generated images that showed objects mixed together unnaturally and people without fingers. (Hands are notoriously difficult for image generators.)
This is a good model for certain things, but it's far from perfect https://t.co/AOcs92M5TF
— AI Leaks and News (@AILeaksAndNews) December 7, 2024
Aurora's release comes after X made Grok free for all users. Previously, chatbots were gated behind X's $8/month premium subscription. Free users can send up to 10 messages to Grok every two hours and generate up to three images per day.
In other X and xAI news this week, xAI has closed a $6 billion funding round, is reportedly developing a standalone app for Grok, and is announcing the release of its next-generation Grok model, Grok 3. It may be coming soon.