Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

blog.google

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

531–540 of 593 posts

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

#531

Post by vintermann »

keiferski wrote: post #301
avmich wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mostly disagree. > 1... The narrative/life of the artist becomes a lot more important. When I watch a movie, I don't care about the artist's life. I care about character life, that's very different. > 2... Originality matters more than ever. By design, these tools can only copy and mix things that already exist. It's like you assigning to humans divine capabilities :) . Hyperbolizing a little, humans also only copy…

1. I meant artists writ large, not specifically movies. My point being that community management, PR, having a brand, etc. are becoming a key element of an individual artist’s career. Examples of this abound – see the recent Markiplier film as a case in point. That movie did well because Mark’s audience wanted to help him, not because it’s such an original genius concept for a movie. But even then – people obviously…

> I meant artists writ large, not specifically movies. My point being that community management, PR, having a brand, etc.

This was always the case. Without an idea of what it is, no sound wave is going to register to a human as music. If you heard a violin for the first time and had no idea what it was, maybe you'd like the sound, maybe not, if you weren't used to it you might make up a theory of what it is and be fascinated by it.

But these days, if you hear something that sounds different, of course you will likely just assume oh, some AI made it, and that theory makes it less interesting, because then it makes no sense wondering what the person on the other side is trying to communicate, because there is no person on the other side.

Of course you can still be interested in for other reasons. Like you'd be interested, on seeing a bowed string, "how does it make a sound like that?" You might even find the sound enjoyable in itself, because of associations you for some reason get from it. But no sound is terribly enjoyable for long if it isn't interesting.

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

#532

Post by dntrkv »

nindalf wrote: post #46
alex43578 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When a company uses a photocopier, they don’t want to pay a scribe. When a company sends an email or docu-sign, they don’t want to pay a courier. Technology supplements or replaces jobs, often reducing costs. This is no different.

Art isn't just a job or a way to make money, like being a courier is.

I don't think brand designers or graphic designers are going anywhere.

Yes, the lower end of the market will be decimated. But that's been the case for a long time now. Services like Fiverr have already driven the value of that tier of service down to basically nothing.

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

#533

Post by krisoft »

rand_r wrote: post #508
avmich wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mostly disagree. > 1... The narrative/life of the artist becomes a lot more important. When I watch a movie, I don't care about the artist's life. I care about character life, that's very different. > 2... Originality matters more than ever. By design, these tools can only copy and mix things that already exist. It's like you assigning to humans divine capabilities :) . Hyperbolizing a little, humans also only copy…

> When I watch a movie, I don't care about the artist's life. I care about character life, that's very different. It may seem like this, but up to now, you haven't been able to divorce a story from its creator because every story has an author, whether it's a novel like Harry Potter or a movie that has a writer and director. When you're experiencing the story, in the back of your mind, you always know that there is s…

> you can't experience something like a movie without trying to figure out what the actual message behind the movie was

I believe you that your brain works like that but this is absolutely not how mine works. I care if i enjoy the movie, and if the characters are believable, i absolutely do not care what the message is supposed to be.

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

#534

Post by shinycode »

krisoft wrote: post #530
shinycode wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Physicalists say consciousness emerges from matter. The other camp says matter comes from consciousness. Federico Faggin, inventor of the microprocessor, says consciousness cannot emerge from matter because matter is inert and not self-conscious, so it cannot produce consciousness. Who’s right and who’s wrong? Time will tell. But it is also wrong to claim that consciousness emerges from matter until it is proven (aka…

> But it is also wrong to claim that consciousness emerges from matter until it is proven How would you prove if it did? What kind of proof would you accept?

The same kind of proof we accept for any scientific claim: converging, reproducible evidence that rules out competing explanations.

Concretely, that means: We already have indirect evidence: conscious states vary predictably with brain states. Damage specific regions, lose specific functions. Alter chemistry, alter experience. This is not proof, but it’s systematic dependence, which is exactly what emergence predicts. Stronger evidence would look like precise, bidirectional mappings between neural activity and reported experience: to the point where you could reliably read subjective states from brain data, or induce specific experiences through targeted stimulation. We’re already moving in that direction.

The hardest bar would be building a system from physical components, having it report coherent subjective experience, and being able to explain why that configuration produces experience while others don’t. That’s the hard problem: and no, we’re not there yet. And it’s worth being honest: we’ve been assuming physicalism will eventually solve it, but there’s no guarantee that’s true rather than hopeful. The fact that brain states correlate with conscious states doesn’t explain why there is something it is like to have those states. Correlation is not mechanism.

But here’s the key point: you’re implicitly holding emergence to a standard of certainty that no scientific theory meets. We don’t have that standard of proof for evolution, gravity, or quantum mechanics either. We have overwhelming evidence that makes alternatives implausible.

So the question isn’t “can you prove it beyond all doubt?” It’s “does the evidence favor it over alternatives?” Right now, it does — but that’s a pragmatic verdict, not a metaphysical one. Idealist frameworks like Kastrup’s or Faggin’s remain serious contenders. The debate is more open than mainstream science often admits.

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

#535

Post by krisoft »

KPGv2 wrote: post #375
CWuestefeld wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with everything you said, except that #1 is clearly wrong. I can prove it with one word: autotune. At least in popular, mainstream culture, the viewer is heavily invested in the identity of the artist. The quality of the "art" is secondary. That's how we get music engineered by committee. And it's how we get paparazzi, People Magazine, and so forth. On the other hand, this isn't anything new at all. We've had…

All this being said, I think comparing the art market and popular music markets is foolish. 12yo boys aren't buying emerging mixed-media artists. But they are picking Spotify songs. When I buy art, I have often spoken with the artist in the past couple days, or I am aware of their history and story and how they developed their art as a response to some other movement or artist collective. It's rare for people to buy…

> It's rare for people to buy art just bc oil paints go brrrrrm

It is rare to buy oil paints period. It is an expensive luxury in more than one way.

That being said I do buy art hanging from the wall because it looks pretty. In fact that is the only way i ever did. I see it. I feel it. I say “hi, hello, how much? That sounds good, here you go. Yes please package it.” And then i hang it on my wall. Don’t care about who the artist is and couldn’t tell you.

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

#536

Post by shinycode »

rcxdude wrote: post #488
shinycode wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Physicalists say consciousness emerges from matter. The other camp says matter comes from consciousness. Federico Faggin, inventor of the microprocessor, says consciousness cannot emerge from matter because matter is inert and not self-conscious, so it cannot produce consciousness. Who’s right and who’s wrong? Time will tell. But it is also wrong to claim that consciousness emerges from matter until it is proven (aka…

I mean, the nature of subjectivity prevents you from knowing anything but your own experience. There is not any objective evidence that could truly distinguish solipsism from panpsychism, so philosophically you need to ask a different question to hope to get a useful answer.

That’s a genuinely strong point. You can only verify consciousness from the inside, your own. Everything else is inference. No objective measurement can definitively distinguish “other minds exist” from solipsism. That’s not a bug in the argument, it’s a fundamental epistemic limit. Which is exactly why this question may never be fully resolved empirically

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

#537

Post by shinycode »

whattheheckheck wrote: post #484
shinycode wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Physicalists say consciousness emerges from matter. The other camp says matter comes from consciousness. Federico Faggin, inventor of the microprocessor, says consciousness cannot emerge from matter because matter is inert and not self-conscious, so it cannot produce consciousness. Who’s right and who’s wrong? Time will tell. But it is also wrong to claim that consciousness emerges from matter until it is proven (aka…

So some kind of ether conscious energy animated cells to fight entropy?

Not necessarily either but the serious version of the argument is that life consistently acts against local entropy in purposeful ways, and pure physics doesn’t obviously explain why matter would “want” to do that. Consciousness as a organizing principle is one answer. It’s speculative, but it’s not obviously wrong

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

#538

Post by Holtkoetter »

dizlexic wrote: post #106
progbits wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For corporate art it is. Nobody draws memphis out of passion.

The real victims here are going to be the graphic designers who worked for firework importers.

Ha, I already wondered about all the obviously AI labels of last year's lineup.

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

#539

Post by krisoft »

shinycode wrote: post #534
krisoft wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But it is also wrong to claim that consciousness emerges from matter until it is proven How would you prove if it did? What kind of proof would you accept?

The same kind of proof we accept for any scientific claim: converging, reproducible evidence that rules out competing explanations. Concretely, that means: We already have indirect evidence: conscious states vary predictably with brain states. Damage specific regions, lose specific functions. Alter chemistry, alter experience. This is not proof, but it’s systematic dependence, which is exactly what emergence predicts…

> The hardest bar would be building a system from physical components, having it report coherent subjective experience

So like if i finetune an LLM in a loop to tell you that it is feeling a coherent subjective experience would you accept that?

Does that mean that no dog has ever been conscious, because they cannot report a coherent subjective experience? (Because they can’t report anything at all. Being non-verbal.)

> you’re implicitly holding emergence to a standard of certainty that no scientific theory meets.

Wtf? I asked what kind of proof would you accept. How is that holding anyone to any kind of standard? Let alone one which is too high.

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

#540

Post by shinycode »

TheLNL wrote: post #514
shinycode wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if LLM will one day be autonomously updated, they started from us, from our knowledge. The human brain « is smart », it’s wired up to be in any kind of culture or knowledge. We fill up to be smarter from experience but LLM can’t do that, I can’t teach Claude something that it will use with you the next day, it needs to be retrained with knowledge stopping at some point. Even if technology catches up and the mach…

Humans have a mechanism to make live changes to their neural network and clean up messes while sleeping. I see no reason for llms to not be able to do this other than the fact that it is resource intensive (which will continue to go down)

The analogy holds technically, but there’s a missing piece: the brain doesn’t just update weights, it does so guided by experience that matters to a situated, embodied agent with drives and stakes. Sleep consolidation isn’t random cleanup, it’s selective based on salience and emotion. An LLM updating more efficiently is progress, but it’s still optimizing a loss function. Whether that ever approximates what the brain does during sleep depends entirely on whether you think the what (weight updates) is sufficient, or whether the why (relevance to a lived experience) is what makes it meaningful. So yes, the resource argument will weaken over time. But the architectural gap may be deeper than just compute.
Post reply on HN