X, the social network owned by Elon Musk that used to be known as Twitter, has introduced a new feature called Aurora to its Grok assistant. This feature allows users to create images using artificial intelligence. However, shortly after its launch on Saturday, many users found that they could no longer access it.
Aurora is another image generator, similar to one that was added to Grok back in October. It appears to have very few limitations on the types of images it can create. Users can access it through the Grok section of X’s mobile apps or the website. This means that people can ask the tool to create images of famous public figures, such as Mickey Mouse, without facing any issues. While it seems that the tool avoids generating nudity, it can produce fairly graphic images, like one showing a bloodied Donald Trump.
The details about how Aurora was created are not very clear. Employees from xAI, an artificial intelligence company founded by Musk, announced Aurora on the platform but didn’t explain if they built it from scratch or if they used another existing image generator as a base. Some reports suggest that at least one employee was involved in fine-tuning the feature to enhance its performance.
Early users, like Matt from Twitter, have shared images created with Aurora, such as a scene featuring actors Ray Romano and Adam Sandler on a sitcom set. Overall, Aurora is quite good at creating lifelike images, particularly of landscapes and still life. However, it does have its flaws. Some users reported that the images could merge objects in strange ways, and there are instances where people depicted in the images appeared to be missing fingers, which is a common challenge for AI image generators.
The introduction of Aurora coincided with the decision to make Grok free for everyone. Previously, Grok was only available to users who paid for X’s $8-per-month Premium subscription. Now, free users can send up to 10 messages to Grok every two hours and create up to 3 images each day.
In other news from xAI and X, the company recently raised $6 billion in funding, and there are reports of plans for a standalone app for Grok. Additionally, xAI may soon release an updated version of the Grok system, known as Grok 3. Elon Musk even hinted on social media that the new features are still in the testing phase but will improve quickly.
It’s worth noting that just after launching, it seems that Aurora was temporarily removed or made inaccessible to some users.
