Elon Musk was behind the founding of OpenAI, but he left it long before it became famous for ChatGPT. With the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) over the past year, the tycoon decided to create a new startup that would compete with xAI, founded in July 2023. Behind this company is Grok, the generative AI model of the that they have finally released the API.
From the beginning, Grok has been developing with the goal of being an exclusive AI tool for premium customers of X (formerly Twitter). However, they had not yet released anything to test their promised features. Two months after Musk talked about an API, they have already released it, although it is quite basic.
Elon Musk
@elonmusk
The @xAI API is now live!
October 21, 2024 • 18:18
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On the official website, they mention that the API is from “grok-beta” and includes their latest creations and, therefore, the most complete (which are light years away from rivals like ChatGPT or Google Gemini). According to the brand’s information, the version includes both Grok-2, the latest model in the family, and Grok-2 mini, a lighter and more affordable version.
Grok’s first API redirects users to X for testing. Although there is still a lot of work ahead, the beta makes it possible to connect AI models with external tools, such as databases or search engines. What it does not support at the moment is attaching documentation with text and images, since it is not capable of analyzing everything at once.
Grok price in xAI API
Both Grok-2 and Grok-2 mini are within the “grok-beta” API, without distinctions. We don’t know when xAI uses one model or the other, but they use both in theory. Therefore, the price of its use corresponds to a single model that could be a mix of the two most modern versions of the startup. According to the x.ai website, users who want to use Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence will have to pay $5 per million input tokens and $15 per million output tokens.
In case you still don’t know exactly what tokens are, they are subdivided chunks of raw data (words, syllables, or characters). For example, for “fan” the word “fantastic” would be one. To give you an idea, one million tokens would be equivalent to approximately 750,000 words.
Input tokens are the text units that are introduced into the model to be processed. That is, what we commonly know as “prompts.” Meanwhile, the outputs are the text units that the model generates in response to what the user writes to it.
At the moment, token payments in the Grok API appear to be failing for some clients. Several X users have reported that they have had problems trying to obtain usage credits.
Ashutosh Shrivastava
@ai_for_success
Anyone else having issue with buying credit for Grok API ? https://t.co/CjzyFsl1qL https://t.co/rWHMndJIDR
October 21, 2024 • 19:41
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Grok’s story so far
As we have already noted above, Elon Musk founded xAI in the summer of 2023. Since then, paying X users have already been able to test the first Grok model, included in the Premium+ rate, which costs 16 euros per month.
The API is a leap forward. This brings us a model with the two most current versions of xAI’s artificial intelligence, but it is also more expensive if we compare it with the price of the first model.
In any case, xAI wants to differentiate itself from the competition with answers that are outside the norm of what OpenAI, Google and other companies consider acceptable. Musk came to define his artificial intelligence as a model with “a rebellious streak” that answered “spicy questions that are rejected” by the versions of his rivals. Grok is capable of using more vulgar language, with profanities that you will hardly read on ChatGPT or Gemini.
