Grok-2 arrives on X with AI image creation, precious few guardrails, and lots of questions

(Image credit: xAI)

X users can now play around with the new Grok-2 AI model developed by fellow Elon Musk-owned xAI. The new model is integrated into the Grok AI chatbot on X for Premium or Premium+ subscribers and comes with new features like an integrated AI image generator fueled by the open-source and recently debuted FLUX.1 model.

Flux was built by former Stability AI developers who left to form Black Forest Labs. When it launched, Flux garnered praise for its human figures. Now, those capabilities are available on X, and the immediate output has varied wildly. X has apparently put very few guardrails on Grok-2 or the AI image generator, with reports of the AI providing weapon-making guides and plenty of fake but realistic pictures of celebrities and copyrighted fictional characters that seem like invitations to massive lawsuits.

Grok Pic Puzzles

Though Grok-2 is still only in beta, the lack of what have become standard restrictions on what the chatbot can say or images it will make suggests not much consideration was given to any complications that might arise from not including limits that OpenAI’s DALL-E, Google’s Gemini, Midjourney, and most other AI image generators have as a matter of course. While letting users make an image of Iron Man fighting Superman or Dua Lipa winning an Acadamy Award (with its copyright-protected statuette) looks impressive, there are reasons it hasn’t been available on ChatGPT. Between the possible abuse of real people’s likenesses and the apparent infringement of intellectual property rights, it’s hard to say which contentious debate will be more heated.

If you’re not an X premium subscriber, you can still try out Flux, though probably not with quite as few limitations. AI model hubs NightCafe and Poe both offer access to the model, and you can even download it from Hugging Face to run on your computer if you have a powerful enough machine.

Elon Musk has repeatedly claimed that Grok is designed to push back against what he describes as over-censorship of digital platforms, including AI assistants like ChatGPT. Whether that would protect him and xAI in court is debatable. Considering how Musk founded xAI to oppose OpenAI on an almost philosophical level, the contrast probably doesn’t bother him. Then again, X may get away with pointing out how Grok’s images aren’t quite a perfect imitation of reality.

Eric Hal Schwartz is a freelance writer for TechRadar with more than 15 years of experience covering the intersection of the world and technology. For the last five years, he served as head writer for Voicebot.ai and was on the leading edge of reporting on generative AI and large language models. He's since become an expert on the products of generative AI models, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, Google Gemini, and every other synthetic media tool. His experience runs the gamut of media, including print, digital, broadcast, and live events. Now, he's continuing to tell the stories people want and need to hear about the rapidly evolving AI space and its impact on their lives. Eric is based in New York City.