🔥X Frees Grok, Introduces Aurora

X makes Grok free, adds new AI image generator Aurora

Key Points 

• X makes Grok free with 10 free prompts every two hours and allows 10 image generations.

• Aurora, a new AI image generator developed by xAI, is now part of Grok but still in beta.

🤖News - X users no longer need an X Premium subscription to use the platform’s AI chatbot, Grok. Instead, the service now offers 10 free prompts every two hours. 

Users can also generate up to 10 images during the same period, though image analysis is limited to three per day unless they subscribe.

✨What's more? X has introduced Aurora, a new image generator for Grok, developed by xAI, Elon Musk’s AI startup. While some xAI staff hinted at fine-tuning the model, Musk described it as an in-house system, currently in beta but expected to improve rapidly.

Aurora, like Grok’s previous image generator Flux, has some restrictions. It can generate images of public and copyrighted figures but avoids nudity while allowing other graphic content. Early users praised its photorealistic outputs, particularly landscapes and still lifes, but noted issues like unnatural object blending and incomplete human features.

Notably, after launching briefly on Saturday, Aurora has disappeared for some users.

☕See also - In other updates, xAI recently closed a $6 billion funding round and is reportedly developing a standalone app for Grok. Additionally, the next-generation Grok 3 model may be on the horizon.

Meta unveils newest Llama AI model

Key Points 

• Meta’s Llama 3.3 70B matches the performance of Llama 3.1 405B at a significantly reduced cost.

• Llama 3.3 70B outperforms competitors like Google’s Gemini 1.5 Pro and OpenAI’s GPT-4o on benchmarks.

⚡News - Meta has unveiled its latest addition to the Llama family of generative AI models: the Llama 3.3 70B.

Ahmad Al-Dahle, VP of generative AI at Meta, shared the news on X, highlighting that the text-only Llama 3.3 70B matches the performance of Meta's largest model, Llama 3.1 405B, but at a significantly reduced cost.

🧐What’s the edge here? Al-Dahle revealed a comparison chart showcasing that Llama 3.3 70B outperforms major competitors like Google’s Gemini 1.5 Pro, OpenAI’s GPT-4o, and Amazon’s Nova Pro on key industry benchmarks, including MMLU, a measure of language understanding. A Meta spokesperson added that Llama 3.3 70B will enhance areas such as math, general knowledge, instruction following, and app integration.

🤓The strategic importance - Available for download on Hugging Face, the official Llama website, and other platforms, Llama 3.3 70B signals Meta’s continued strategy to lead in the AI market by promoting “open” models for diverse commercial uses. While developers with platforms reaching over 700 million monthly users must request special licensing, Llama has already amassed over 650 million downloads.

Internally, Meta has also capitalized on Llama’s capabilities. The company’s AI assistant, powered entirely by Llama models, now has nearly 600 million monthly active users, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg projecting it to become the world’s most widely used AI assistant.