Blog: Grok AI…What are These Images?

When I started playing around with AI and its creative skills, my dad initially suggested that I try Elon Musk’s AI program, Grok. However, when I looked it up, I found out that it was locked to anyone who didn’t have an X account. Thus, I couldn’t use it since my parents won’t let me have an X account for some obvious reasons regarding to the stupidity and inappropriate stuff on there (I have good parents). However, I was recently perusing a blog by a guy called The Nerdy Blogger (go check out his blog if you haven’t already; it’s really funny) and found out that Grok is now free, and you don’t need an X account to use it. So, I signed in with Google and began to test it out. Although it didn’t get rid of the 18+ “personas” immediately and had some technical problems at first, it was already better than Microsoft Copilot, which I’ve been using for a while now. Its answers were a lot more thorough; it gave me way more links and is generally better if you’re trying to research things quickly.

However, that said, I’ve been disappointed to find out that Grok’s image creating capabilities, one of the main things I use AI for, is a mixed bag. Sometimes, it’s good, but other times, it’s not as great as Copilot’s. Sure, if you give it a prompt that you specify as “photorealistic” it will give you something that looks eerily real while Copilot will often give you pictures of people that look like they might be using Botox and lip fillers, but with other prompts it just looks bad. Maybe that’s one of the things that Grok 3 is trying to work out, but in the meantime, let’s compare some pictures done by each program and see which are better.

#1: Tanuki in a Dress

If you’ve read my post about going to a Civil War ball back in January, you may remember this thumbnail that was generated with Copilot:

It’s ridiculously cute, the dress looks great, Copilot got the chibi art prompt down to a T, and I love how it even added a feminine touch to the tanuki by giving it eyelashes. But when I put a similar prompt into Grok…well… here’s what I got:

I’m sorry, but WHAT THE HECK IS EVEN THAT?! What is happening with the one on the bottom left? The dress doesn’t even line up with the head. And the one on the bottom right is just…ew. Why do they look so creepy?

Things didn’t get much better as I continued entering in prompts, even resorting to roasting Grok in the style of Steven He just to see if the prompts would get better (and to vent my growing frustration). I ended the chat by typing: “*yeets shoe at Grok to cause maximum emotional damage*” and here’s what it gave me:

They are armed with shoes. They’re ready to fight back against me.

As I’m writing this, I tried to better the prompt, so it was closer to what I put in for my Copilot tanuki, but for some reason, some of them still looked like something from a cursed version of Animal Crossing.

Why? Just…why?

#2: Jesus Flipping Over Tables

This one was one of the first prompts I ever tried with Copilot in light of this meme:

When I tried it in Copilot, I got this:

Grok, however, had a different idea of what flipping over tables meant:

Last I checked, this isn’t flipping over tables in any sense of the word. This is just looking at a table (one of which appears to be floating) in a creepy way. What is happening here?

#3: Trump as a Tanuki

This is the only one where Grok did a good job, mostly because Copilot refuses to have a sense of humor about Trump. I can just imagine this little guy saying, “We’re going to make Japan great again…”

#4: Generating Humans

If you type: “Generate a picture of humans” into Copilot and leave it at that, what you get is this:

It’s cartoony, for some reason the faces look disturbing, and I have to wonder why some of the people look like bobble heads. Meanwhile, Grok created this:

The people don’t look creepy, they look fairly normal (though I don’t know what’s happening with the main woman’s thumb), and they look realistic. Another thing that I like about the realistic pictures is the fact that Grok added a watermark, so you can’t use it and try to pass it off as something real (which has been becoming an increasing problem).

Overall, I think there’s strengths and weaknesses to Grok and Copilot. If you want something cartoony or more like a video game, Copilot’s your guy. But if you want something that looks real, Grok is much better.

Until next time,

M.J.