Dec. 7 (UPI) — Elon Musk’s xAI artificial intelligence company on Saturday rolled out a free beta version of its Aurora image generator, capable of producing photo-realistic pictures upon request.
The Aurora service is available through the Grok 2 add-on to Musk’s X social media platform, which was made free for all users earlier this week.
“Congrats @xai for releasing a brand new image gen model — Aurora!” xAI developer Chris Park posted on his X account Saturday. “Grok 2 + Aurora is now available with your X app in the model selector. Oh, by the way, Grok 3 is coming!”
xAI doesn’t need to wait until Monday. This team is too cracked and stays shipping.
Congrats @xai for releasing a brand new image gen model -Aurora!
Grok 2 + Aurora is now available with your X app in the model selector.
Oh, by the way, Grok 3 is coming. https://t.co/l92HwU4q9e— Chris Park (@chrisparkX) December 7, 2024
Under the terms of the free service, users can send up to 10 messages to Grok every two hours and generate up to three images per day, according to TechCrunch.
One AI analyst reacted by noting the roll-out was done over a weekend.
“I don’t think people realize how much effort goes into these launches,” wrote Rowan Cheung, producer of The Rundown AI newsletter. “OpenAI, Google, etc., would rarely — if ever — launch something big over the weekend, given the risks and the need to pull in more people if something goes wrong.
“Something to pay attention to.”
Like earlier versions of xAI’s ultra-realistic image generator, it appeared unclear on Saturday what if any guardrails exist on what can be drawn, including ultra-realistic depictions of public figures.
Some early users reported being able to generate images of well-known celebrities and politicians, such as Musk and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
When first introduced for premium subscribers in August, xAI claimed its image generator was designed to exclude “illegal activities” and “deepfakes or misleading media,” yet users were still able to generate highly controversial images such as former President Barack Obama taking illegal drugs or presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris holding guns.