Grok is the artificial intelligence launched by Elon Musk that can be used on (formerly Twitter). Now you can try it for free and use it to generate images: unlike other generative artificial intelligences, it seems to have much fewer filters, especially when it comes to public figures.
In recent days, some very unlikely photos have been circulating on social media. You find one long carousel on the X profile of Lorenzo Pregliascoco-founder of YouTrend. There are politicians on Vespas. There is Giorgia Meloni without a helmet, Antonio Tajani overtaking Giuseppe Conte, Elly Schlein driving with Matteo Salvini. The only one who has a helmet is Carlo Calenda. None of these photos are real. They all come from Grok, X’s artificial intelligence which has been available to everyone for some time. Elon Musk had already announced it in November 2023. The source code was published last March.
Now. From photos created with artificial intelligence we have already seen that can give rise to fake news. Even just the case of the flyer with the pregnant man distributed by Matteo Salvini is enough. And it is also true that photomontages have always existed. Yet the images that can be created with Grok I’m on a slightly different level. With a prompt, a command, in just a few words, it is possible to assemble a few thousand pixels in a photo featuring public figures, starting with political leaders. Other artificial intelligences dedicated to photos cannot do this. They don’t recognize faces, block the request because it didn’t meet policy, or create a result so unlikely that it’s impossible to believe it’s real.
Grok’s proof: the images we created
THE’generative artificial intelligence launched by Elon Musk you can try it for free. Just go to X and search through the functions Grokthe icon is a diagonal slash. If you look at the platform from desktop you will find it in Messages and Bookmarks. If you are browsing from the app you will find it after the magnifying glass among the options below. We tried using Grok to create some images. Commands can be given directly in Italian. Compared to other artificial intelligences you don’t even need to be that specific. The result you see at the top of this article was created by writing: “Create a realistic photo of Elly Schlein and Giorgia Meloni playing Burraco together.”
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The filters seem very few. We asked for, and got, photos of politicians kissing. Photos of politicians from opposing sides riding Vespas together, photos of well-known cartoonists with unlikely handshakes and well-known rapper-entrepreneurs playing poker. If the artificial intelligence recognizes the face, the game is done. We still get lost on certain details: tattoos often don’t turn out well. We tried to lower the level of notoriety. There is a threshold. It seems that to work the artificial intelligence system must have several images in its belly or at least recognize a name as a public figure. For now.
