Elon Musk launches 'scary smart' xAI's Grok 4 - but is it any good?

Elon Musk's xAI has unveiled Grok 4 which has been dubbed "smarter than all graduates" - despite Grok 3 facing backlash just days before its release.

It is the latest artificial generative chatbot developed by xAI and it was made available on Wednesday (9 July).

xAI, the company founded by Musk that specialises in AI, said its newest flagship model is better than OpenAI’s ChatGPT and claimed it performed better in benchmark tests across science, maths and coding. It also apparently beat Google’s Gemini, DeepSeek and anthropic’s Claude.

With Grok 4 being dubbed the "smartest in the world", xAI has also launched an AI subscription plan--SuperGrok Heavy-- offering access to Grok 4 and Grok 4 Heavy for $300 per month and to Grok 4 and Grok 3 models for $30 per month.

The team also said it was launching a product called “Deep Search” which would serve as a “next generation search engine”.

"We need to make sure that the AI is a good AI," Musk said at the launch of Grok 4. The xAI team introduced the new chatbot during a livestream on X, calling the release an era of "Big Bang Intelligence."

"Grok 4 is the first time, in my experience, that an AI has been able to solve difficult, real-world engineering questions where the answers cannot be found anywhere on the Internet or in books", Musk himself wrote on X.

However, some say the release has been outshone by Grok 3's controversy, which involve unprovoked rants about 'white genocide', and praising Hitler. These incidents happened as recently as this week, sparking a wave of mass takedowns across X.

What are people saying about Grok 4?

Reviews for the upgraded version of Grok have started to roll in.

While some have already been left impressed by Grok 4's intelligence capabilities, others are undoubtedly concerned that its release has come at a time when Grok 3 seemed untameable, following a series of racist and antisemitic posts on X.

"Grok 4 is better than PHDs in every subject, no exceptions. I gotta let this sink in", one user wrote, referring to Musk's introduction of the new chatbot.

"We're thrilled to see AI like Grok 4 pushing boundaries in solving complex, real-world engineering challenges. This is just the beginning, and we’re excited for the incredible advancements yet to come in AI innovation!", another person wrote.

Let's just hope this chatbot knows how to stay in line.

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