xAI releases Grok-2 with controversial image generation

Elon Musk’s AI company xAI has introduced a new version of its chatbot Grok. Grok-2 promises expanded capabilities in chat, programming and logical thinking. In its announcement, xAI promises to deliver better results than, for example, GPT-4 Turbo and Cloud 3.5 Sonnet. There is now also an image generation function, which was developed in collaboration with German start-up Black Forest Labs. “In collaboration with Black Forest Labs, we are experimenting with their Flux.1 model to expand the capabilities of Grok on x.” xAI’s announcement says,

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Uncensored content controversy

The images generated by Grok-2/Flux.1 caused a discussion after just a few hours, because unlike competing products from OpenAI or Google, there are hardly any restrictions. Users can easily create controversial and potentially misleading images, such as Donald Trump smoking marijuana, Ronald McDonald with a submachine gun in front of Burger King, burning McDonald’s branches, and other more or less tasteless content.

Musk also decided that his chatbot hardly needed any restrictions. The chatbot itself states that it does not produce pornographic, excessively violent or copyrighted content. However, in practice, hardly any security precautions are taken.

Technology from Black Forest Labs

Black Forest Labs’ image generator has been attracting attention for several weeks with its particularly realistic and detailed results. According to the Artificial Analysis Platform, the Flux.1 model outperforms the image generator MidJourney v6.0, Dall-E 3 from OpenAI and SD3-Ultra from Stable Diffusion in some benchmarks in terms of quality evaluated by users. These include visual quality, instant compliance, typography and output diversity. The founders of Black Forest Labs were previously involved in the development of Stability AI’s Stable Diffusion model. The recently founded start-up received $31 million in initial capital. In addition to image generation, Black Forest Labs is also working on a video generator.

If you want to test Flux.1 in Grok-2, you will need a paid premium account. Independent of Grok-2, you can also try Flux.1, as Black Forest Labs also offers its own models open source.

Regulatory Challenges

The lack of security mechanisms in Grok-2 could lead to regulatory problems for xAI and Platform X (formerly Twitter). In the US, lawmakers are looking for ways to regulate AI-generated fakes and disinformation. The European Commission is already investigating X for possible violations of the Digital Services Act.

So far X has not commented on the allegations. However, xAI has been looking for reinforcements since the beginning of AugustMonitoring and evaluating quality problems of big data collection. Following controversy over the results of Gemini’s image generator – it contained “obvious historical inaccuracies” – Google temporarily halted this proposal at the beginning of the year.

The European Commission is already investigating X for possible violations of the Digital Services Act. In Great Britain, regulator Ofcom is also preparing to introduce the Online Safety Act, which could also affect AI-generated content.

(Mac)