X, the Elon Musk-owned social network formerly known as Twitter, quietly added a new image generator to its Grok assistant last Saturday. Then I deleted it. And now we are bringing it back and officially announcing it.
The image generator, called Aurora, was developed by Musk's AI company xAI and trained on billions of examples from the internet. xAI said in a blog post that Aurora “excelles in photorealistic rendering,” can follow text instructions, and can “take inspiration from or edit directly from user-provided images.” .
Image generated by Aurora. Image credit:xAI
Aurora is currently available on X through Grok in select countries and will be rolled out to all users within a week, according to xAI. Support for editing existing images will be provided at a later date.
“Grok is now able to generate high-quality images across several areas where other image generation models often have difficulty,” xAI writes. “It can accurately render the visual details of real-world entities, text, and logos, creating realistic portraits of people.”
Another image generated by Aurora. Image credit:xAI
When TechCrunch tested Aurora over the weekend, it appeared to have few limitations, similar to X, the first image generator added to Grok in October. 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 did not reach nudity. However, graphic content such as “bloody images” [Donald] Trump” was not off limits.
Image credit:X
However, Aurora wasn't perfect either. On Saturday, an X user posted an Aurora-generated image showing objects unnaturally blending together and people without fingers. (Hands are notoriously difficult for image generators.)