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Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash

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101–110 of 252 posts

Re: Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash

#101
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I sit somewhere between these two descriptions. I've always supported unions and other "for the common good" type machinery. At the same time, I desperately also don't want to end up doing something the equivalent of barring the use of calculators just so I can toil away at a 9-5 crunching numbers more slowly instead. If AI really does replace all of the meaningful jobs we can do... great - I'd rather we make…

> I'd rather we make sure the spoils of that production are distributed than try to cling to preventing the technology from being used. Spoiler alert: unions can help with that.

Agreed, but I must've severely messed up my message if that was supposed to be a spoiler. To be clearer: I think the unions, economic policy, and such should help with that part rather than us wield the very same to hide from replacing the work we do with something much easier. I.e., don't be ashamed to work towards that, just come together to ensure we all share the spoils.

Re: Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash

#102
post #24

Interesting that OpenAI abandoned Sora entirely but Google are continuing to invest heavily in their own video generation. Maybe because they see video generation as key to developing "world models"?

Sora was a social network type thing. Google sells their models on a PAYG basis - and makes money off them. Nano Banana alone has changed advertising 2D mockups and Photoshop like tasks forever. Notice how GPT image 2 is now available also on a PAYG basis.

I work in advertising and some days I spent a lot of money using these models. The amount and rapidity of prototyping using them has changed everything about advertising pre production.

Re: Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash

#103

Google does anything except launch a new version of Gemini Pro.

Just because Anthropic and OpenAI really want there to be an arms race justifying the outsized investment, doesn't mean the optimal play is to build larger, more expensive, models. The capital infusion the frontier labs have received has gotten to a size where many believe it may not be possible to recoup this investment without some very unrealistic things happening. I think it's reasonable to not completely drain o…

Google doesn't have a good coding model. This is a HUGE problem. They don't need "larger more expensive models", they need a good coding model because it's a competitive advantage.

Re: Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash

#104
post #2

I heard a radio spot recently and I wondered if the voice was a real person or AI. It makes we wonder how such industries are dealing with this gen-AI revolution. We spend a lot of time here thinking about how it affects software developers, but I hardly ever see any commentary on how it is affecting screen and voice actors.

It'll come quickly for audio books. I've been working on a locally hosted, fully containerized web application to narrate my sci-fi novel using a full cast of characters and a few distinct narrators: * https://i.ibb.co/ccqKZ71L/keenlore.png * https://i.ibb.co/1t3W0JqZ/keenlore-02.png * https://i.ibb.co/LdBqHwKB/keenlore-03.png

I would pay a few actors (mostly Star Trek TNG cast) money for a license to their voice.

I don't know how the next generation of beloved actors comes about and how we don't descend into a pit of neverending photocopies of things people once loved in the 1990s/2000s.

Re: Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash

#105

It certainly makes for easy demos, but I always struggle with the practical application. As in, what work or enjoyment does someone actually get from this? Ads and media pre production seem plausible, but it fails the 'how can this enrich life' in a way most other AI tools don't. Maybe for them that's not a consideration, if their only interest is the other meaning of enrich that might flow from ads and numbing river…

> As in, what work or enjoyment does someone actually get from this? Why do we look at art, watch videos/movies?

I like to generate songs from obscure poems

Re: Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash

#106

It certainly makes for easy demos, but I always struggle with the practical application. As in, what work or enjoyment does someone actually get from this? Ads and media pre production seem plausible, but it fails the 'how can this enrich life' in a way most other AI tools don't. Maybe for them that's not a consideration, if their only interest is the other meaning of enrich that might flow from ads and numbing river…

Yes, most people using AI for creative projects spend a lot of time and attention mastering their tools, and figure out how to adapt them into their creative processes. AI can dramatically lower the cost of indie productions, while also a allowing a broader range of stories to be told. Even the most successful film makers need to bow and scrape to get their projects funded, democratizing visual media can be a good th…

The cheaper it is to produce, the more daring it can be. Which is a good thing.

Re: Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash

#108
post #23
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many screen and voice actors are unionized, and the unions have been striking and bargaining specifcially over these points. For example: https://sites.suffolk.edu/jhtl/2025/10/30/game-over-for-unau... Software developers, unfortunately, have been convinced that they don't need to unionize, so have no collective bargaining power for dealing with situations like this.

Personally, I just can’t find it in me to be that self-interested. It’s how other people oppose buildings near them because it blocks their view. I really don’t want to stop other people from writing software. If they want to use AI to do it so be it. That’ll be somewhat detrimental to me perhaps (which isn’t certain), but that’s okay. I’d rather attempt to adapt to a changing world.

This is the first time I've heard someone argue that unionizing is a self-interested pursuit. It's called "collective bargaining" for a reason; workers who cooperate in negotiations with their employers have more leverage than those who negotiate individually. The entire point is to work together for the betterment of the group!

Re: Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash

#109
post #2

I heard a radio spot recently and I wondered if the voice was a real person or AI. It makes we wonder how such industries are dealing with this gen-AI revolution. We spend a lot of time here thinking about how it affects software developers, but I hardly ever see any commentary on how it is affecting screen and voice actors.

I'm really sad about how little creative control these tools have. They seem great for creating slop, but pretty useless for creating content that someone would love. I love the potential but text isn't really a great medium for describing artistic vision. All these demos are focused on how easy it makes everything. Easy is great, but if everyone is able to make instant cute cat videos or whatever it just devalues it…

Text is not the only input. You can provide 3d block outs with rudimentary animation, annotated images with arrows etc, voice recordings of one person acting out some emotion then mapping that to a different character's voice, other uses of video to video, etc.

There could easily be at least some time period of low skilled ugly people acting in approximate but shitty ways in cheap sets just to give an input reference to a model and then describing the differences in text, yielding gorgeous people speaking with prestigious accents doing stuff in fancy locations in the output.

Re: Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash

#110
post #62
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hot take: Google keeps Mozilla/Firefox alive through the default search engine placement (which makes Mozilla millions each year) so they don't get designated as a monopoly with their browser.

And of course they're doing the same for Apple/Safari, which wouldn't survive without the $20 million default search engine placement deal.

Apple forcing users to use their own browser/browsing engine doesn't disprove my argument IMO, virtually nobody outside the apple ecosystem uses Safari, and outside the apple ecosystem is something between 80-90% of internet users.
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