I’m beginning to perceive the place Google’s visible AI mannequin will get its title, as a result of after enjoying round with it for a few days, that’s how I’d sum it up: bananas. The pictures it generates are so lifelike it’s bananas. I really feel like I’m going bananas after looking at them for too lengthy. And if I needed to pinpoint one motive why Nano Banana Professional’s pictures look a lot extra lifelike than the AI slop that got here earlier than them, it’s this: They appear like pictures taken with a telephone digicam.
Certain, the tells are there should you search for them. Take the picture on the prime of this text of the (not actual!) couple on the town sidewalk. The streetlight within the background doesn’t look fairly proper to me, and among the constructing facades — particularly farther into the background — look a little bit unusual and blocky. But when I used to be simply scrolling previous this picture on social media? No means I’d clock it as AI. The topics look lifelike, however I feel the truth that the picture doesn’t look too excellent is what sells it.
The brilliant, flat publicity, the beneficiant depth of subject, the marginally crunchy particulars: All of it screams telephone digicam to me. Ben Sandofsky, cofounder of the favored iPhone digicam app Halide, agrees. Within the AI-generated picture of the ferry boat above, he famous the “aggressive picture sharpening you encounter on sensible telephone pictures. It’s a visible trick that helps picture ‘pop.’” One other hallmark of pictures taken with a telephone? Noise. “Most AI generated pictures really feel far too clear. The feel in these pictures really feel like they got here from a tiny sensible telephone sensor.”
So the place is Google’s AI getting its notions about telephone pictures from? Google Pictures would appear like an apparent — and deeply problematic — place to go, however Elijah Lawal, the worldwide communications supervisor for the Gemini app, says that “for Nano Banana we don’t use Google Pictures.” He additionally tells me that Nano Banana Professional hasn’t been particularly steered towards producing a telephone digicam look. “One of many enormous enhancements is that it will possibly hook up with Google Search,” he says. In the event you immediate it to create an infographic about right this moment’s climate, it will possibly go lookup the temperature — beforehand, you would wish to incorporate extra of that info in your immediate.
Based on Lawal, that is restricted to textual content search and never picture search. However with the ability to go get real-world info by itself is perhaps a key ingredient right here. Nano Banana Professional is very good at including issues to pictures that make sense in that context — even should you by no means particularly requested for them. It may add historic parts like period-appropriate garments and automobiles with out being instructed expressly to take action. It even added a watermark for the Northwest A number of Itemizing Service once I requested it to create a pretend Zillow itemizing for a pretend home in Seattle. It’s getting quite a bit higher at understanding the project and including these little particulars with out being prompted to.
Picture: Nano Banana Professional
I requested Gemini for a Zillow itemizing for a craftsman-style home with white paint and black trim in West Seattle. It gave again a wordy text-only itemizing describing the place, however with one other immediate, I used Nano Banana Professional to create a picture to go along with the outline. I hadn’t particularly requested for it, however included within the picture is a 2023 copyright, which is deeply humorous, and a watermark just like the one which’s on principally each actual property picture you discover within the better Seattle space. Curiously, it’s not the present emblem — it’s the earlier model, which is similar one on each image of the home I purchased in 2018.
I requested Google the place Nano Banana may probably provide you with that, and DeepMind product supervisor Naina Raisinghani advised it was a hallucination, providing this assertion: “Nano Banana Professional gives main upgrades to character consistency, picture technology, and search-grounded accuracy. Whereas that is our most exact picture mannequin so far, AI hallucinations can happen. If a picture isn’t fairly proper, we encourage you to retry, as a subsequent try typically yields a outcome extra in step with your intention.” The factor is, including the watermark for an actual property itemizing service looks like the mannequin working precisely as meant.
Watermark or no, I assume the small print on the “on the market” signal may give this away as AI, or perhaps that the potted vegetation on the entrance porch look a little bit too excellent, however actually? I’m having a tough time believing this home shouldn’t be actual, although I do know in my bones it isn’t. I wouldn’t give it a second thought if I got here throughout it on an actual property web site, and the watermark would definitely assist promote it as real. If AI is getting this good at imitating the issues that sign a photograph is actual, then guys: We’re cooked.
That’s what’s most regarding to me: The AI tells are getting more durable to identify, and Nano Banana is getting higher at mimicking little particulars that make the picture appear actual. We gave it some imprecise prompts to depict a Verge reporter masking a reside occasion; it added particulars like a microphone with the Verge emblem within the reporter’s hand and a chyron within the decrease a part of the display screen. No misspellings or alien-looking letters. No arms with six fingers. Nothing that might clearly tip it off as AI and loads of little particulars to promote it as the true deal.
A yr in the past, or perhaps a few months in the past, I had a way that there was a day coming sooner or later, a day when it wouldn’t be clever to consider any picture or video I noticed on-line from an unfamiliar supply except confirmed in any other case. This train has satisfied me that that day isn’t sooner or later; it’s right here now. Tune your AI radar appropriately, and don’t be shocked if it drives you a little bit bit bananas.
