Elon Musk’s Grok AI Reportedly Gets Upgraded With New AI Image Generator, Taken Down Within Hours

xAI, the company behind Grok, did not make any announcement for the new Aurora image generator.

Written by Akash Dutta, Edited by Manas Mitul | Updated: 9 December 2024 16:21 IST

Elon Musk’s Grok AI Reportedly Gets Upgraded With New AI Image Generator, Taken Down Within Hours

Photo Credit: xAI

The Aurora image generator reportedly had very few restrictions in generating images of public figures

Highlights

Elon Musk confirmed that Aurora is an internal image-generation system
Several users posted images generated using Aurora’s capabilities
However, hours after launch, the AI tool disappears for many users

Elon Musk-owned artificial intelligence (AI) firm xAI reportedly added a new AI image generator to Grok on Saturday. This image generation model, dubbed Aurora, was confirmed by Musk to be internally developed, unlike Flux which was developed by Black Forest Labs. After spotting the tool in Grok, several users posted images that were said to be generated using Aurora. However, just a few hours later, many users reported that the tool disappeared for them. It is speculated that the AI model was taken down due to loose guardrails in generating images of public figures.

xAI Reportedly Added a New Image Generator to Grok

According to a TechCrunch report, a new image generation model was spotted in the Grok interface within the X (formerly known as Twitter) platform. On the model selector option location at the top of the page, users could reportedly choose the “Grok 2 + Aurora” option to access the image generation capabilities of the new model. But interestingly, xAI did not make any official announcement about the launch of the tool.

Behold my images using the new Grok @grok image generator Aurora: 🧵

1. Ray Romano and @AdamSandler on a sitcom set pic.twitter.com/2V491RdjMF
— Matt (@EnsoMatt) December 7, 2024

However, Musk indirectly confirmed the AI model while replying to a post on X that shared several images generated using Aurora. He said, “This is our internal image generation system. Still in beta, but it will improve fast.”

So this new @grok image generation called Aurora just shipped on a Saturday, what do we think folks?

Looks like trained by them, no evals or details, just, here you go, use the thing.

Seems focused on photo realism

https://t.co/oR2Uvb96vV
— Alex Volkov (Thursd/AI) (@altryne) December 7, 2024

Separately, Chris Park, Director and Co-Head, X Developer Platform at X, congratulated xAI in a post for “releasing a brand new image gen model — Aurora”. Several users also posted images generated using the AI tool. The model appears to be generating images of public figures like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and copyrighted characters such as Mickey Mouse and Luigi. In one instance, TechCrunch was also able to generate an image of US President Donald Trump with a bleeding face.

ok. so it's useless. pic.twitter.com/fGQ28D3Y9F
— 🍓🍓🍓 (@iruletheworldmo) December 7, 2024

Due to the lack of an official announcement, no details are available about Aurora's model architecture, framework, data training approach, or the source of the data used to train the model. It is also not known whether the model was entirely built in-house or it was built in collaboration with a third-party AI firm.

Adding to the mystery, several users reported the disappearance of the AI model just a few hours after its release. Some speculated that Aurora was accidentally launched due to a testing glitch, while others claimed it was due to the lack of guardrails in generating images. While nothing can be said conclusively due to the lack of an official statement, Gadgets 360 staff members did not find the option to use Aurora at the time of writing.

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Further reading: Elon Musk, X, xAI, Grok, AI, Artificial Intelligence, AI image generator

Akash Dutta Email Akash Dutta

Akash Dutta is a Senior Sub Editor at Gadgets 360. He is particularly interested in the social impact of technological developments and loves reading about emerging fields such as AI, metaverse, and fediverse. In his free time, he can be seen supporting his favourite football club - Chelsea, watching movies and anime, and sharing passionate opinions on food. More