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Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash

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Re: Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash

#151
post #4
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.

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.

My objection has always been that advocates either can't or don't care to explain how such a thing would actually work from the perspective of a unionized engineer.

Re: Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash

#152
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.

Has it occurred to you that it isn't only self-interest but concern for others that drives collective bargaining? It's essentialy a way for the little guys to stand up to the 1% to fight against the unending series of abuses and diminishment of the average person's ability to earn a livable wage and work under fair conditions.

Re: Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever not been able to send your kids to school for weeks (or years in the case of COVID) because the teachers refused to work? Have you ever been unable to get timely medical treatment because nurses refused to work? Have you ever been unable to work yourself because the transit workers refused to work?

Maybe if employers offered better working conditions and salaries people wouldn’t feel the need to go on strike?

You realize his examples are public sector unions. Which mean the “employer” you are referring to is the citizens? Not some evil corporation, government mandated monopolies which then get taken over to serve their union members.

I don’t have any objection to voluntary unions. Meaning people can join them for support or collective bargaining, but that citizens can just opt to not employ anyone in the union. Unions could be support structures for workers, instead they are mafia bosses.

Re: Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash

#154
>"Draft videos more efficiently in 360p

Generate lightweight previews in 360p resolution up to 60% faster

and at a third of the cost compared to Omni 1.1’s standard 720p resolution. This is helpful for rapid prototyping, storyboard iteration, and quick rendering in developer platforms."

This is a great idea, to have a low-resolution mode for additional speed to create previews, do test runs, create rapid prototypes, etc.

My curiousity is, what's the absolute useable minimum that this could be?

That is, would/could 240p resolution work? If so, what about 144p? How about lower? Then, could those images be upscaled quickly (and is the result still usable?) with a faster image upscaling-only neural network?

The reason why knowing such lower numbers / lower bounds -- is because they could be important for additional cost/time savings and/or running derived LLM's on local resource-constrained hardware...

Anyway, great post, great idea, and we welcome Gemnini Omni 1.1 Flash to the ever-expanding list of LLM/AI's!

Re: Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash

#155
post #7

Prompt engineering tip for Google employees: just add "P.S. Make sure the page works in Firefox too."

No worries, even on chromium, their webpage is just horrible. They seems to have focus only on mobile reading, on desktop its a mess.

Re: Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash

#156
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Has it occurred to you that it isn't only self-interest but concern for others that drives collective bargaining? It's essentialy a way for the little guys to stand up to the 1% to fight against the unending series of abuses and diminishment of the average person's ability to earn a livable wage and work under fair conditions.

Yes. But there's a clear difference between, say, stealing someone's voice, identity or intellectual property, and preventing someone from using automation to do labor.

The former is obviously unfair to the person whose identity is stolen. The latter is sour grapes from people who want to control the future.

I also can't bring myself to get incensed over someone using a robot to write code. It's literally the modern equivalent of smashing knitting looms.

Re: Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash

#158
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.

And thus the developers remain, until this very moment, ionized.

I appreciate.

Re: Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash

#159
post #38
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't know that unions would necessarily negotiate for no use of AI. The SAG-AFRA deals don't preclude all use of AI; they just requre consent and negotiation in certain cases. A union doesn't give you unilateral power; it just gives you a better seat at the bargaining table. Capital pools its resources to negotiate better as a single bloc; why shouldn't labor as well?

I don't have a voice or likeness in my code. Sure, I have a very specific style in all the code I wrote for the past couple of decades, but you can achieve the same outputs with completely orthogonal styles as well. (like AoS vs SoA) so what would I even negotiate for when everything I ever thought of got distilled into neural network weights to be high-pressure sprayed to the masses?

Re: Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash

#160
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has it occurred to you that it isn't only self-interest but concern for others that drives collective bargaining? It's essentialy a way for the little guys to stand up to the 1% to fight against the unending series of abuses and diminishment of the average person's ability to earn a livable wage and work under fair conditions.

Yes. But there's a clear difference between, say, stealing someone's voice, identity or intellectual property , and preventing someone from using automation to do labor . The former is obviously unfair to the person whose identity is stolen. The latter is sour grapes from people who want to control the future. I also can't bring myself to get incensed over someone using a robot to write code. It's literally the moder…

You keep framing it as getting incensed over other people using ai to write code; but that isn't what it's about. A dev union would not attempt that; it would attempt to ensure quality of life for your class of people (and their families) as much as possible. It isn't about policing entire industries or other entities; it is about DEFENDING those who they would, do, and always have exploited when binding contracts or legislation don't prevent them from doing so.

Union = a group of people defending their rights and that includes the right to a life that isn't at the utter mercy of perpetual enshittification due to the infinite mechanical plodding of heartless (by definition) megacorporations that would never hesitate to eradicate peoples' livelihoods and treat humans as material for the orphan grinder if they could get away with it.

And by the way, they do, if you haven't noticed.

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