Elon Musk"s X (formerly Twitter) recently introduced a new AI tool to its arsenal: an AI image generator called Aurora. The feature was available for a few hours before being mysteriously removed. However, during its brief availability, many users experimented with Grok"s AI-powered Aurora and shared their impressions on the platform.
According to multiple users, Grok"s AI image generator, Aurora, generated photorealistic images from prompts, directly within the X app"s web interface. Unlike other AI-powered photo generation tools, X"s Aurora lets users generate copyrighted and public figures, including Disney characters, without any restrictions.
However, it did restrict users from going full throttle and prevented them from generating nude images. Surprisingly, graphic content such as an image depicting "bloodied President-elect Donald Trump" reportedly slipped through, in a test by Tech Crunch.
Some xAI staffers couldn"t wait and announced Aurora in posts on X as early as Saturday, revealing that the xAI team played a role in fine-tuning the AI image generator. However, details such as how xAI trained Grok"s AI image generation tool Aurora, which underlying tool was used, or whether it was built in partnership with third parties for its creation, weren"t disclosed.
Based on user reports, it appears that Aurora holds strong capabilities in generating landscapes and still-life images, with some occasional misses. Users have shared a few weird outputs, such as objects merging unnaturally or characters with distorted hands, which is an ongoing challenge for AI image generators, particularly in rendering hands.
ok. so it’s useless. pic.twitter.com/fGQ28D3Y9F
— 🍓🍓🍓 (@iruletheworldmo) December 7, 2024
Behold my images using the new Grok @grok image generator Aurora: 🧵
— Matt (@EnsoMatt) December 7, 2024
1. Ray Romano and @AdamSandler on a sitcom set pic.twitter.com/2V491RdjMF
Recently, X made Grok free to use for all users, which was previously behind a $8/month paywall allowing for limited image creation without the premium subscription. Aurora was accessible inside a new "Grok 2 + Aurora beta" option in the Grok model selector, which has now been taken down, and now it only shows "Grok 2 + Flux."