Elon Musk turned to his company xAI’s new media generation tool, Grok Imagine, for a weekend experiment that quickly drew widespread attention and criticism across social media. Early Saturday morning, shortly after Tesla shareholders approved a compensation package that could be worth up to $1 trillion, Musk posted two Grok-generated videos to X, his own social media platform.
The first post, timestamped 4:20 a.m. EST, featured a short AI-generated clip created from the prompt, “She smiles and says, ‘I will always love you.’” The video depicted an animated woman standing in the rain, speaking the line in a computer-generated voice. Musk captioned it as being produced with Grok Imagine, a photo and video creation tool developed by xAI.
Twenty-four minutes later, Musk shared another Grok-generated video, this time portraying actress Sydney Sweeney saying, “You are so cringe,” also in an artificial voice. Both clips, intended as demonstrations of Grok’s capabilities, quickly became subjects of debate on X, with users posting reactions that ranged from amusement to mockery.
Some users described the “always love you” clip as “the most divorced post of all time,” while others called it “the saddest post in the history of this website.” The criticism extended beyond social commentary on AI-generated personas, touching on Musk’s perceived online behavior and tone.
Author Joyce Carol Oates delivered one of the most pointed responses, writing that it was “so curious” Musk “never posts anything that indicates that he enjoys or is even aware of what virtually everyone appreciates,” referencing friends, art, and daily pleasures. Oates added that Musk seemed “totally uneducated, uncultured,” and suggested that “the poorest persons on Twitter may have access to more beauty & meaning in life than the ‘most wealthy person in the world.’”
Musk replied directly to Oates, writing, “Oates is a liar and delights in being mean. Not a good human.”
The exchange marked another instance of Musk intertwining personal expression, technology demonstration, and online controversy—this time through the lens of artificial intelligence.
Featured image credits: Freepik
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