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Genie 2: A large-scale foundation world model

deepmind.google

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Re: Genie 2: A large-scale foundation world model

#51
post #14

Genuine question: What is the point of telling us about this if we can’t use it? Is it just to flex on everyone?

The best minds of a generation went from thinking about how to make people click ads to how to generate 3d video game worlds.

The best minds were never working on getting people to click on ads. That was an internal industry narrative so people could feel better about themselves.

Re: Genie 2: A large-scale foundation world model

#52
post #6

Wow.. I can't even imagine where we'll be in 5 or 10 years from now. Seems that it's only "consistent" up to a minute, but if the progress keeps the same rate.. just wow.

Progress is not linear. For all we know, in 2027 things will slow down to a virtual halt for the next 30 years. Look at how much big science progressed in the first 20 years of the 19th century/20th century and look how little it has progressed in the first 20 years of this century. We are on the downlow compared to the last centuries and even if you look at crisp or deep learning, they are not as impactful NOW as le…

The things you list for previous centuries aren't limited to the first 20 years

Re: Genie 2: A large-scale foundation world model

#53
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> the squealing carcass called Gemini Have you used Gemini? It seems every bit as good as ChatGPT.

Not even close. It fails basic framework questions for me, that Claude and GPT easily answer.

Re: Genie 2: A large-scale foundation world model

#54

For quite a while now David Holz of Midjourney has mused that videogames will be AI generated. Like a theoretical PlayStation 7 with an AI processor replacing the GPU. But, I didn’t expect this much progress towards that quite this fast…

If only it were that simple. Google spent $10b developing Stadia, where was the big hit game from that?

These DeepMind guys play Factorio, they don't play Atari games or shooters, so why aren't they thinking about that? Or maybe they are, and because they know a lot about Factorio, they see how hard it is to make?

There's a lot of "musing" as you say.

Re: Genie 2: A large-scale foundation world model

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best minds of a generation went from thinking about how to make people click ads to how to generate 3d video game worlds.

The best minds were never working on getting people to click on ads. That was an internal industry narrative so people could feel better about themselves.

seems more like an external narrative so people can feel worse about the world

Re: Genie 2: A large-scale foundation world model

#56

For quite a while now David Holz of Midjourney has mused that videogames will be AI generated. Like a theoretical PlayStation 7 with an AI processor replacing the GPU. But, I didn’t expect this much progress towards that quite this fast…

I've had the idea for a Backrooms-style hallucinatory generative videogame for a while. Imagine being able to wander through infinitely generated surreal indoor buildingscapes that were rendered in close-to-realtime.

It would play to the medium's strengths -- any "glitches" the player experiences could be seen as diagetic corruptions of reality.

The moment we get parameterized NeRF models running in close-to-realtime, I want to go for it.

Re: Genie 2: A large-scale foundation world model

#57
post #39

This is impressive, but why are they all looking still like a video game? Could they have this render movie scenes with realistic looking humans? I wonder if it is due to the training set they use being mostly video games?

I highly doubt it. While there is no ceiling in principle on how good rendering can get, even with perfect knowledge of the physics of optics, the cost to compute that physics is too high not to cut some corners. Nature gives you this for free. Every photon is deflected at exactly the right angle and frequency without anything needing to be computed. All you need is a camera to record it. At least for now, this is why every deep fake, digital de-aging, AI upscaling, grafting Carrie Fisher's face onto a different actor, and CGI in general inevitably occupies the uncanny valley.

Re: Genie 2: A large-scale foundation world model

#58
It is jaw-dropping and dismaying how for-profit AI companies use long-standing terms like "world model" and "physics" when they mean "video game model" and "video game physics." Or, as you can plainly see, "models gravity" when they mean "models Red Dead Redemption 2's gravity function, along with its cinematic lighting effects and Rockstar's distinctively weighty animations." Which is to say Google is not modeling gravity at all.

I will add the totally inconsistent backgrounds in the "prototyping" example suggests the AI is simply cribbing from four different games with a flying avatar, which makes it kind of useless unless you're prototyping cynical AI slop. And what are we even doing here by calling this a "world model" if the details of the world can change on a whim? In my world model I can imagine a small dragon flying through my friend's living room without needing to turn her electric lights into sconces and fireplaces.

To state the obvious: if you train your model on thousands of hours of video games, you're also gonna get a bunch of stuff like "leaves are flat and don't bend" or "sometimes humans look like plastic" or "sometimes dragons clip through the scenery," which wouldn't fly in an actual world model. Just call it "video game world model!" Google is intentionally misusing a term which (although mysterious) has real meaning in cognitive science.

I am sure Genie 2 took an awful lot of work and technical expertise. But this advertisement isn't just unscientific, it's an assault on language itself.

Re: Genie 2: A large-scale foundation world model

#59
post #31

This is super impressive. Interesting they're framing this more from the world model/agent environment angle, when this seems like the best example so far of generative games. 720p realtime mostly consistent games for a minute is amazing, considering stable diffusion was originally released 2ish years ago.

Pixelspace is an awful place to be generating 3D assets and maintaining physical self-consistency.

Ultimately even conventional 3d assets are rendered into pixelspace. It all comes down to the constraints in the model itself.

Re: Genie 2: A large-scale foundation world model

#60

Not even a month ago HN was discussing Ben Affleck's take on actors and AI, somehow taking a side with him and arguing how the tech "it's just not there, etc...". I'll keep my stance, give it two years and very realistic movies, with plot and everything, will be generated on demand.

Ai can't generate images without awkward hallucinations yet. From that to movies that make sense to movies that people would want to watch (comparable to feature films) beyond the initial curiosity factor is a long way, if there is one.
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