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Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash

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Re: Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash

#171

Post by Melatonic »

lambda wrote: post #4
petcat wrote: 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.

Software engineers and VFX workers also tried to unionise back in the day and there was a giant wage fixing and anti competitive hiring scandal that was majorly illegal. Perpetuated by some of the biggest names in tech.

They settled for a large undisclosed sum out of court. But largely won unfortunately as unionisation efforts failed

Re: Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash

#172

Post by Imustaskforhelp »

bitexploder wrote: post #64
jimmoores wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the Chinese labs can compete on a shoestring budget with access to much less powerful hardware, Google should be able to compete as well. They're becoming almost irrelevant for agentic coding right now.

AI / LLM is about more than agentic coding. It is one of the least interesting use cases to me, thinking more broadly. HN may be over-indexed on it.

I would agree with you on AI/LLM being more than agentic coding but at the same time, I think there's more nuance.

For example, PDF's and powerpoints can be generated using agentic coding by things like https://bento.page or other ways of generating them in an agentic coding fashion.

A lot of browser automation could/is also done by agentic coding.

It can also help them set up and configure self hosted software with the help of LLM's and debugging if its working or not.

You can create videos using Manim and remotion.dev and also excalidraw-animate and generate excalidraw files agentically if what you need is more vector style graphics (which surprisingly can fit into many ideas) rather than say a real life human waving video/more photo-realistic video (but I must say that this has certainly its own pros/use-cases as well).

It might sound self-explainatory but turns out that coding can represent a wide range of problems!

Re: Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash

#173

Post by Melatonic »

sib wrote: post #114
brendoelfrendo wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

See current situation where the Carpenters' Union in California is pushing hard against an initiative that would make it much easier to build more housing in the state because it would also reduce requirements for union labor. Unions are very much an in-group vs out-group phenomenon (and in many cases, the benefits are specifically to the more senior union members vis a vis the less senior ones.)

They've also been proven to increase wages for people in the same industry who are not even in the union due to raising the floor in general for what good labor should cost

Re: Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash

#174

Post by Melatonic »

brendoelfrendo wrote: post #108
arjie wrote: 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.

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!

People also forget the role they play in protecting and helping corporations. Without unions as a legal and negotiating intermediary you get things like factory workers burning down the factories when they are overly exploited.

Re: Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash

#175

Post by Melatonic »

baron816 wrote: post #121
brendoelfrendo wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

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?

Nurses have very strict legal requirements on when they can strike and for how long. Not unlike railroad workers.

When have you not been able to get timely medical treatment at the fault of nurses ?

Re: Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash

#176

Post by Melatonic »

timr wrote: post #156
popalchemist wrote: post #152

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…

A software union probably wouldn't tell you what tools to use when writing code. It would help protect you from being completed replaced by code

Re: Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash

#177

Post by Melatonic »

vlyan wrote: post #44
lambda wrote: 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.

>The union demanded clear protections to ensure that recordings of actors’ performances could not be copied without consent and compensation. >California’s legislation passed AB 2602 and AB 1836 in September 2024, prohibiting media companies from using AI to replicate actors’ performances without their consent. it's a very reasonable law, but it is not the win you seem to believe it to be. the actors who refuse to co…

If they still have to pay an actual person though to license their likeness then they are much more likely to actually employ that person directly to get a better result. And in the cases where quality is not needed the person still gets paid for their AI likeness.

Seems like a reasonable take

Re: Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash

#178

Post by Melatonic »

georgemcbay wrote: post #43
quaintdev wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It won't happen to me is what I used to think

> It won't happen to me is what I used to think In my experience this is what almost everyone thinks, right up to the point where it starts happening to them. And it isn't just an individual blind spot, organizations suffer from the same thing in the sense that many companies will be happy to automate away all their labor to avoid paying the "human tax" without giving much thought to the fact that the need for the co…

Exactly. Or a competitor comes in and does what you do for half the cost and double the efficiency.

Re: Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash

#179

Post by miki123211 »

lambda wrote: post #4
petcat wrote: 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.

In the 21st century, the only professions that can successfully unionize are those you can't replace with workers from a non-unionized country.

If your students are in Oklahoma, your teachers also have to be in Oklahoma. If the Oklahoma teachers unionize, you have no option but to hire those unionized teachers if you want your students taught. If your bank is in Oklahoma, you can hire programmers in London or buy a SaaS from a company based in Geneva.

Programmers also have much less of a reason to unionize, as "quit and go work somewhere else" is often a realistic option. This is usually not the case for teachers, where the only employer seeking their skills in the area is the government, whose idea of what teacher salaries should be is not based on market forces.

Re: Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash

#180

Post by bayindirh »

Melatonic wrote: post #170
lambda wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The giant strikes were hugely based on AI issues

Yes, and these prevented actors being copied in 3D, in all their likeness and cast for any and every movie they fit practically for free.
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