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Nano Banana 2: Google's latest AI image generation model

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Re: Nano Banana 2: Google's latest AI image generation model

#451

Post by gambiting »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #437
gambiting wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>These entities, whoever they are, they act on our world, they are real, and more and more over time they will get independent from humans, eventually becoming different species that can self-replicate. See, I don't believe that for even one second. They are just very clever calculators, that's all. But they are also dumb like a brick most of the time. It's a pretend intelligence at best.

It's a pretend intelligence at best. The best time to start paying attention was ten years ago, when the first Go grandmaster was defeated by a "pretend intelligence." I sure wish I had. The next best time to start paying attention is now.

>>when the first Go grandmaster was defeated by a "pretend intelligence."

A computer playing GO is intelligent now? Is this the kind of conversation we're having?

>>I sure wish I had.

And how would you have changed your decisions in those last 10 years if you did?

>>The next best time to start paying attention is now.

I am paying attention, I use these tools every day - the whole idea that they are intelligent and if only you gave them a robot body they would be just normal members of society is absurd. Despite the initial appearance of genius they are just dumb beyond belief, it's like talking to a savant 5 year old, except a 5 year old can actually retain information for more than a brief conversation.

Re: Nano Banana 2: Google's latest AI image generation model

#452

Post by kjeksfjes »

keiferski wrote: post #237

Some random predictions about what AI image generation tools will do/are doing to art: 1. The narrative/life of the artist becomes a lot more important. The most successful artists are ones that craft a story around their life and art, and don't just create stuff and stop. This will become even more important. 2. Originality matters more than ever. By design, these tools can only copy and mix things that already exis…

My prediction: KNOWLEDGE of whether something is made by AI or a human will be alpha and omega, and will eventually be regulated used in commercial contexts. You will always be able to generate something, but if you somehow get exposed presenting it as human made, the sanctions will hurt you.

Re: Nano Banana 2: Google's latest AI image generation model

#453

Post by JKCalhoun »

keiferski wrote: post #237

Some random predictions about what AI image generation tools will do/are doing to art: 1. The narrative/life of the artist becomes a lot more important. The most successful artists are ones that craft a story around their life and art, and don't just create stuff and stop. This will become even more important. 2. Originality matters more than ever. By design, these tools can only copy and mix things that already exis…

You're focused on the visual arts—I'll add that live music will become more treasured, sought after than recorded music.

Because it's real.

Re: Nano Banana 2: Google's latest AI image generation model

#454

Post by CamperBob2 »

gambiting wrote: post #451
CamperBob2 wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a pretend intelligence at best. The best time to start paying attention was ten years ago, when the first Go grandmaster was defeated by a "pretend intelligence." I sure wish I had. The next best time to start paying attention is now.

>>when the first Go grandmaster was defeated by a "pretend intelligence." A computer playing GO is intelligent now? Is this the kind of conversation we're having? >>I sure wish I had. And how would you have changed your decisions in those last 10 years if you did? >>The next best time to start paying attention is now. I am paying attention, I use these tools every day - the whole idea that they are intelligent and if…

"Dumb beyond belief" doesn't perform at the gold-medal level at IMO.

And how would you have changed your decisions in those last 10 years if you did?

I'd have dropped everything else I was doing and started learning about neural nets -- a technology that, for the previous couple of decades, I'd understood to be a pointless dead end.

As for Go, the defeat of Lee Sedol caught my attention in part because a friend and colleague, one of the smartest people I've ever worked with, had spent a lot of time working on Go-playing AI as a hobby. He was strongly convinced that a computer program would never reach the top levels of play, at least not during our careers/lifetimes. The fact that he'd turned out to be wrong about that was unnerving, and it should have done more than "catch my attention," but it didn't.

Today, my graphics card can outdo me at any number of aspects of my profession, and that's more interesting (to me) than anything I've actually done.

...except a 5 year old can actually retain information for more than a brief conversation.

Like I said: it's a good time to start paying attention. Start taking notes, so to speak, like the models are doing now.

Re: Nano Banana 2: Google's latest AI image generation model

#455

Post by hi_hi »

keiferski wrote: post #237

Some random predictions about what AI image generation tools will do/are doing to art: 1. The narrative/life of the artist becomes a lot more important. The most successful artists are ones that craft a story around their life and art, and don't just create stuff and stop. This will become even more important. 2. Originality matters more than ever. By design, these tools can only copy and mix things that already exis…

This is a great and worthwhile discussion. People are loosing sight of what art is. The art is the idea, not the medium. And just because something is easy, doesn't mean it will be good.

I've seen some fantastic original pictures that actual artists have generated through AI. I can't wait to see what current and future artists can do with the new tools at their disposal.

Re: Nano Banana 2: Google's latest AI image generation model

#456

Post by ForHackernews »

zug_zug wrote: post #102

I'm sure this has been written about but here's what happens long term - images are commoditized and lose their emotional appeal. Probably about half of us here remember photos before the cell phone era. They were rare, and special, and you'd have a few photos per YEAR to look back on. The feel of photos back then, was at least 100x stronger than now. They were a special item, could be given as a gift. But once they…

There's already a book about this: The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1935)[0]

> The conditions for an analogous insight are more favorable in the present. And if changes in the medium of contemporary perception can be comprehended as decay of the aura, it is possible to show its social causes.

[0] https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/benjamin.pdf

Re: Nano Banana 2: Google's latest AI image generation model

#457

Post by lightyrs »

hubraumhugo wrote: post #205

It's working pretty well for generating an xkcd comic for your HN profile: https://hn-wrapped.kadoa.com/ Previous nano banana frequently made speech attribution errors, the new one seems a lot more consistent.

This was really fun. Nice job.

Re: Nano Banana 2: Google's latest AI image generation model

#458

Post by nwienert »

rcpt wrote: post #322
soared wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same! I redid my backyard entirely and needed ideas. Gemini took a pile of dirt and gave me countless ideas, improved my plans, recommended materials, etc. a designer gave me two out of the box ideas that Gemini didn’t come up with, but it did everything else perfectly. (Designer said, put a patio out in the yard and put your table there, and take your ugly shed and make it the center of attention, since you’ll never…

Related: I asked AI to find me a house to buy and went with the first recommendation. It did a better job searching than I did.

Curious on this - what was the prompt like? How did you give it access to listings?

Re: Nano Banana 2: Google's latest AI image generation model

#459

Post by vunderba »

Results are in for `gemini-3.1-flash-image-preview` (NB 2) for the GenAI Showdown site in the editing comparisons. Remember to click the "Pass/Fail" button to toggle between pass/fail and a weighted score to account for additional factors like steerability, image quality, etc.

Unfortunately, unlike the leap from NB to NB Pro, we did not see significant gains from NB Pro to NB Pro 2.

In several cases (such as the Jaws Poster), we observed that it was substantially more difficult to prevent NB Pro 2 from making significant changes to the rest of the image. Localization of edits, in general, seems to have changed and not necessarily for the better.

http://genai-showdown.specr.net/image-editing

Comparison solely between the Gemini models (NB, NB Pro, and NB Pro 2):

http://genai-showdown.specr.net/image-editing?models=nb,nbp,...

Re: Nano Banana 2: Google's latest AI image generation model

#460

Post by dialogbox »

vunderba wrote: post #76

I've only had a brief opportunity to try out NB Pro 2 (`gemini-3.1-flash-image-preview`), so I haven't had a chance to update GenAI Showdown. Here's some of my captions that tend to trip up even state-of-the-art models. https://mordenstar.com/other/nb-pro-2-tests So far it does feel more iterative than an entirely new leap in terms of capabilities, but I haven't run it through the more multimodal aspects such as edit…

Nice test. Nitpicking. Isn't it NB Pro and NB 2? Not NB Pro 2.
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