Elon Musk's xAI has launched Grok-2 and Grok-2 mini in beta, enhancing reasoning capabilities. The new Grok AI model now supports image generation on the X social network, though access is currently restricted to Premium and Premium+ users.

xAI announced that both Grok-2 and Grok-2 mini are available in beta for X users.

"We are thrilled to present an early preview of Grok-2, a major advancement from our previous model Grok-1.5, featuring cutting-edge capabilities in chat, coding, and reasoning. Additionally, we are introducing Grok-2 mini, a smaller yet powerful counterpart to Grok-2. An early version of Grok-2 has been tested on the LMSYS leaderboard under the name 'sus-column-r'," stated xAI in their blog post.

Musk's AI company plans to make both models accessible to developers via its enterprise API later this month.

Early user-generated images indicate that Grok's image generation feature lacks restrictions on creating images of political figures, which many users are currently exploiting. With the U.S. presidential election approaching, the company may face pressure to impose limits on these features.

Grok 2.0 …. Ohh boyyyy  pic.twitter.com/TjzB7WMhVp

— Benjamin De Kraker ‍☠️ (@BenjaminDEKR) August 14, 2024

Grok 2.0 will do political illustrations and real people, while ChatGPT refuses.

This instantly makes Grok 10x more fun…… pic.twitter.com/yDBJO0jWba

— Benjamin De Kraker ‍☠️ (@BenjaminDEKR) August 14, 2024

Grok AI Image Generation: pic.twitter.com/mjzSMEJ5Df

— Jungle Inc: Deaton 4 Senate (@jungleincxrp) August 14, 2024

The text below the sample image prompts suggests that Grok is using FLUX.1 by Black Forest Labs to create these images.

Details on Grok 2’s capabilities are currently limited. App researcher and X feature tester Nima Owji claimed that Grok 2 excels in code generation, writing, and news, though evidence is sparse. Notably, Grok’s first version often made errors while summarizing news.

BREAKING: Here's an early look at Grok 2.0 features and abilities!

It's better at coding, writing, and generating news! It'll also generate images using the FLUX.1 model! pic.twitter.com/UlDW2Spen8

— Nima Owji (@nima_owji) August 13, 2024

Without restrictions on image generation, Grok could become a tool for creating misinformation on X and other platforms. It’s also unclear if Grok-powered images include metadata indicating they are AI-generated.

We have reached out to X for comments on how it plans to limit image generation for harmful purposes and will update the story if we receive a response. However, the company has rarely responded to media inquiries since Musk’s takeover.

xAI mentioned plans to integrate Grok-2 and Grok-2 mini into AI-driven features on X, including enhanced search capabilities, post analytics, and reply functions. This could lead to the introduction of AI-powered replies. The company also plans to release a preview of multimodal understanding as a core part of Grok’s experience on X and API.