AI-generated laughs are now free

Elon Musk has vowed to make AI funny again. Grok, his AI assistant, is pitched as a 'chatbot with humour', going as far as trying to make it say crass jokes on the Joe Rogan podcast (and somewhat failing).

Good news for all joke-crackin’-AI-users: Grok is now available for free.

A journey to compete

Grok, the brainchild of X, xAI, and Elon Musk, was launched in 2023. After the acquisition of X and the rapid deployment of a paid subscription model, Grok was hidden away behind a paywall. Only premium users could access it.

This clashed with chatbot alternatives such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claud, both free to use (with limits).

Elon is likely hoping to compete with the leaders in the space by making Grok available for free.

More: images, apps, and humour

So far, Grok's key differentiator has been its humour. Elon made big fanfare of creating a chatbot that is able to laugh about anything, unfortunately sometimes falling short.

On his latest Rogan podcast appearance, for instance, Grok was repeatedly asked to create 'more vulgar' jokes about transgender women competing in women's swimming. And Grok continued to refuse to engage.

So, if humour isn't the differentiator, what might it be?

xAI teased an image generation engine (which, also, doesn't have much safeguarding, leading to some gruesome creations) and a standalone app.

The differentiator will have to wait, as both of these features are already readily available in Grok's competitors.