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Nano Banana Pro

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Re: Nano Banana Pro

#331

Post by recursive »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #280
Jabrov wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if that's so much a mistake as it is ambiguity though? To me, using the viewer's perspective in this case seems totally reasonable. Does it still use the viewer's perspective if the prompt specifies "Put a strawberry in the _patient's left eye_"? If it does, then you're onto something. Otherwise I completely disagree with this.

“Eye on the left” is different from “the left eye”. First can be ambiguous, second really isn’t.

I guess there's some ambiguity regarding whether or not this can be ambiguous. Because it seems like it can to me.

Re: Nano Banana Pro

#332

Post by pseudosavant »

simonw wrote: post #193

This thing's ability to produce entire infographics from a short prompt is really impressive, especially since it can run extra Google searches first. I tried this prompt: Infographic explaining how the Datasette open source project works Here's the result: https://simonwillison.net/2025/Nov/20/nano-banana-pro/#creat...

It even worked really well at creating an infographic for one of my quirkier projects which doesn't have that much information online (other than its repo).

"An infographic explaining how player.html works (from the player.html project on Github). https://github.com/pseudosavant/player.html"

And then it made one formatted for social: "Change it to be an infographic formatted to fit on Instagram as a 1:1 square image."

Re: Nano Banana Pro

#333

Post by simonw »

vunderba wrote: post #159
sandGorgon wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is pretty cool! have you found success with image editing in nano banana - i mean photoshop-like stuff. from your article i seem to wonder if nano banana is good for editing versus generating new images.

That IS the use-case for Nano Banana (as opposed to pure generative like Imagen4). In my benchmarks, Nano-Banana scores a 7 out of 12. Seedream4 managed to outpace it, but Seedream can also introduce slight tone mapping variations. NB is the gold standard for highly localized edits. Comparisons of Seedream4, NanoBanana, gpt-image-1, etc. https://genai-showdown.specr.net/image-editing

I tried your "Remove all the brown pieces of candy from the glass bowl." prompt against Nano Banana Pro and it converted them to green, which I think is a pass by your criteria. Original Nano Banana had failed that test because it changed the composition of the M&Ms.

https://static.simonwillison.net/static/2025/brown-mms-remov...

Re: Nano Banana Pro

#334

Post by TheAceOfHearts »

jasonjmcghee wrote: post #90

Maybe I'm an obscure case, but I'm just not sure what I'd use an image generation model for. For people that use them (regularly or not), what do you use them for?

My most regular use-case is generating silly memes in group chats. If someone posts something meme-worthy or I come up with a creative response, image generation is good for one-off throwaway memes. A recent example was an "official license to opine on sociology", following someone arguing about credentialism.

Recently I also started using image generation models to explore ideas for what changes to make in my paintings. Although generally I don't like the suggestions it makes, sometimes it provides me with creative ideas of techniques that are worth experimenting with.

One way to approach thinking about it is that it's good for exploring permutations in an idea-space.

Re: Nano Banana Pro

#335

Post by CGMthrowaway »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #287
CGMthrowaway wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is a GREAT example of the (not so) subtle mistakes AI will make in image generation, or code creation, or your future knee surgery. The mistake is in the prompting (not enough information). The AI did the best it could "What's the biggest known planet" "Jupiter" "NO I MEANT IN THE UNIVERSE!"

No, this is squarely on the AI. A human would know what you mean without specific instructions.

I would be amused to see you test this theory with 100 men on the street

Re: Nano Banana Pro

#336

Post by TylerE »

danso wrote: post #305
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this is squarely on the AI. A human would know what you mean without specific instructions.

If the instructions were actually specific, e.g. Put a blackberry in its right eye socket , then yes, most humans would know what that meant. But the instructions were not that specific: in the right eye socket

Or be even more explicit: Put a strawberry in the person’s right eye socket.

Re: Nano Banana Pro

#337

Post by rullelito »

siffin wrote: post #301
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this is squarely on the AI. A human would know what you mean without specific instructions.

Seems like you're making a judgment based on your own experience, but as another commenter pointed out, it was wrong. There are plenty of us out there who would confirm, because people are too flawed to trust. Humans double/triple check, especially under higher stakes conditions (surgery). Heck, humans are so flawed, they'll put the things in the wrong eye socket even knowing full well exactly where they should go -…

Why on earth would the fallback when a prompt is under specified be to do something no human expects?

Re: Nano Banana Pro

#338

Post by bonoboTP »

ceroxylon wrote: post #306

Google has been stomping around like Godzilla this week, and this is the first time I decided to link my card to their AI studio. I had seen people saying that they gave up and went to another platform because it was "impossible to pay". I thought this was strange, but after trying to get a working API key for the past half hour, I see what they mean. Everything is set up, I see a message that says "You're using Paid…

You can use it also in Gemini.

Re: Nano Banana Pro

#339

Post by raincole »

ralusek wrote: post #312
Bjorkbat wrote: post #289

Something I find weird about AI image generation models is that even though they no longer produce weird "artifacts" that give away that the fact that it was AI generated, you can still recognize that it's AI due to stylistic choices. Not all examples they gave were like this. The example they gave of the word "Typography" would have fooled me as human-made. The infographics stood out though. I would have immediately…

It's a bit odd to say, but another big clue identifying something as AI-generated is that it simply looks "too good" for what it is being used for. If I see a little info graphic demonstrating something relatively mundane, and it has nice 3D rendered characters or graphical elements, at this point it's basically guaranteed to be AI, because you just sort of intuitively know when something would've justified the human…

It's not odd to say. It was one of the first telling signs to identify AI artists[0] on Twitter: overly detailed backgrounds.

Of course now a lot of them have learned the lesson and it's much harder to tell.

[0]: I know, I know...

Re: Nano Banana Pro

#340

Post by mkehrt »

BeetleB wrote: post #245
akersten wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some days it feels like I'm the only hacker left who doesn't want government mandated watermarking in creative tools. Were politicians 20 years ago as overreative they'd have demanded Photoshop leave a trace on anything it edited. The amount of moral panic is off the charts. It's still a computer, and we still shouldn't trust everything we see. The fundamentals haven't changed.

Easy to say until it impacts you in a bad way: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/ai-generated-evidence... > “My wife and I have been together for over 30 years, and she has my voice everywhere,” Schlegel said. “She could easily clone my voice on free or inexpensive software to create a threatening message that sounds like it’s from me and walk into any courthouse around the country with that recording.” > “The j…

Testimony is evidence. I don't think most cases have any physical evidence.
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