X Expands Access to Grok AI Chatbot for Premium Subscribers
Grok Now Available to More Paid Users
Social network X is extending access to xAI’s Grok chatbot to Premium tier subscribers, following Elon Musk’s announcement of the expansion last month. According to the company’s support page, only Premium and Premium+ users in select regions can interact with the chatbot.
Grok’s Journey: From Premium+ to Premium
In the previous year, after xAI’s launch of Grok, the chatbot was initially made available to Premium+ users, who pay a subscription fee of $16 per month or $168 annually. The latest update now grants access to users paying $8 per month for the Premium tier.
Chatbot Modes and Accuracy Concerns
Users can engage with Grok in either a “Regular mode” or a “Fun mode”. As with other Large Language Model (LLM) products, Grok displays labels indicating the potential for inaccurate responses from the chatbot.
Grok’s News Summarization Feature and Fake Headlines
Recently, X introduced a new explore view within Grok, where the chatbot summarizes trending news stories, similar to the approach taken by Jeff Bezos and NVIDIA-backed Perplexity AI. However, Grok appears to go beyond mere summarization by generating headlines. As reported by Mashable, the chatbot created a fake headline stating “Iran Strikes Tel Aviv with Heavy Missiles.”
Musk’s Rivalry with OpenAI and Lawsuit
Musk’s likely motivation for expanding access to Grok is to compete with other products like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, or Anthropic’s Claude. In recent months, he has openly criticized OpenAI’s operations and even filed a lawsuit against the company in March, alleging a “betrayal” of its non-profit goal. OpenAI responded by seeking the dismissal of all of Musk’s claims and releasing email exchanges between Musk and the company.
xAI’s Open-Sourcing of Grok and Transparency Concerns
Last month, xAI open-sourced Grok, but without providing training data details. As argued by TechCrunch’s Devin Coldewey, questions remain about whether this is the latest version of the model and if the company will be more transparent about its development approach and training data information.
5 Comments
Grok’s gatekeeping? Bet it’s just another AI with a velvet rope scenario!
Grok AI playing hard to get for the elite, huh? Sounds like my kind of exclusive club!
Grok AI rolling out the red carpet for the ‘premium’ crowd, guess innovation now comes with a price tag!
X thinks they’re trailblazers with Grok, but aren’t we all just chasing after the same AI dream?
X’s Grok AI enters the chat, yet we all ponder, is “exclusive” just another word for “expensive”?