Одна з фотографій Чарльза Брукса, оброблена Grok та поширена Ілоном Маском
A week ago, Elon Musk reposted Eric Jiang of xAI, who allegedly posted images created by Grok, that turned out to be altered works by Charles Brooks.
The plagiarism becomes noticeable as soon as it is opened Brooks’ website. The interiors, which actually represent the interior of musical instruments, are clearly recognizable. Compared to Musk’s images, they lack people, as the photographer did not envision any people inside the violin or piano. The people may have been added with Grok, but the original authorship is not indicated — the images are additionally labeled and captioned as generated by Musk: «Generate images with Grok», — the billionaire writes.
Charles Brooks is a former Australian concert cellist turned photographer. He is best known for his photographs of the inner workings of musical instruments. Using endoscopes and methods of working with them of his own design, he penetrates inside and turns the resulting photos into artistic works.
Generate images with @Grok https://t.co/5Ibx8eArx0
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 1, 2025
The artist told the site 404 Media, which is not common in social network X. He learned about Musk’s post from an outsider.
«Someone else informed me that Musk tweeted my photos and called them [created] by artificial intelligence. At first, there is some anger. You think: «Hey, he’s using my photos to promote his system». It quickly becomes unclear. These photos were edited by someone else […] he took my photos from somewhere else […] and ran them through Grok — and that’s the main thing for me — he edited a tiny percentage of them and then posted them saying: «Look at these tiny people inside the tools». And he didn’t mention my name in that post».
Brooks’ concern is easy to understand: he makes his living by selling prints, posters, and calendars of his work. The artist does not mind when others display his work, but insists on being identified as the author.
«I want my images to be shared. It’s important to me because that’s how people get to know my work. But they need to be shared under my name. That’s the most important thing,» he says.
The author is not even angry at Jiang — although it is not very correct, he still mentioned him in the comment to his post. But when Musk reposts it — his name disappears altogether, only the Grok watermark is visible.
«And the way [Musk] phrases it makes it seem like the whole image is created by artificial intelligence, not just 8-10% […] and everyone is talking: «Oh, look at how great this artificial intelligence is, doesn’t it do amazing things?». And he’s getting great publicity for his business, and I’m lost».
Brooks later published video about the incident on Reddit. In it, he says: «I’m not mad at artificial intelligence in general. I’m angry at people who throw these things around without care». He is also not against the use of AI in art as such.
This is not the first time Elon Musk has falsified his own or his companies’ achievements. He has loudly disgraced himself by boasting about his success in Path of Exile 2 — in fact, others were playing for him. Demonstrations humanoid robots Tesla Optimus were actually made with the help of human operators. The well-known real state of the Cybertruck compared to the Musk’s promises. The billionaire often mentions the truth and freedom of speech, but there is an opinion that people talk a lot about what they lack.