Coarse Is Better

(borretti.me)

49 points | by _dain_ 2 hours ago

9 comments

  • raincole 59 minutes ago
    It's ridiculous lol.

    Midjourney is optimized for beautiful images, while Nano Banana is optimized for better prompt adherence and (more importantly) image editing. It should be obvious for anyone who spent 20 minutes trying out these models.

    If your goal is to replace human designers with cheaper options[0], Nano Banana / ChatGPT is indefinitely more useful than Midjourney. I'd argue Midjourney is completely useless except for social media clout or making concept art for experienced designers.

    [0]: A hideous goal, I know. But we shouldn't sugarcoat it: this is what underpin the whole AI scheme now.

  • andy99 4 minutes ago
    You’re definitely on to something, people wouldn’t criticize as much as they are otherwise, they’d ignore it.

    I think the whole point is that in optimizing for instruction following and boring realism we’ve lost what could have been some unique artistic elements of a new medium, but anyway.

  • airza 1 hour ago
    Years of refinement on the taste of people with no taste has produced a model with no taste. Crazy
    • drob518 1 hour ago
      I tasted the model, but then I spit it right back out.
  • pornel 40 minutes ago
    The author is using special prompts exploiting flaws of the old models, and doesn't like that new models interpret the hacks literally instead.

    The new models have prompt adherence precise enough to distinguish what "British Museum" or "auction at Christie's" is from the art itself, instead of blending a bag of words together into a single vector and implicitly copying all of the features of all works containing "museum" or "ArtStation" in their description.

  • spaceman_2020 1 hour ago
    While I don’t disagree with the author, these are simply two completely different tools with different use cases. Nano Banana Pro throws out fantastic images you can actually use in your marketing right away. It’s not an art tool - it’s a business tool

    As long as the older tools still exist to make art, I don’t see what the problem is. Use NBP to make your marketing pics, MJv2 for your art

  • Zak 1 hour ago
    The author claims the old models are better at creating art than the new ones. I disagree; art requires consciousness and intent while this type of model is capable of neither.
    • LatencyKills 1 hour ago
      I define art as something that evokes an emotion or feeling. I’ve seen people wax poetic about the ”meaning” of an imagine only to find out that the image was created synthetically.

      Were those “feelings” not authentic?

      • neonnoodle 55 minutes ago
        If I see a cloud in the shape of my childhood dog and start to cry, is the cloud art?
        • rtldg 36 minutes ago
          Yes. The Earth and its formations are art. I disagree that art requires consciousness and intent, but those admittedly do improve its value [to me]. (For reference, I value AI content/art poorly and avoid it)
  • llmsagainagain 1 hour ago
    [dead]
  • Demiurge 1 hour ago
    I don’t see splashes of primary color as more artistic. Anyway, what if you just ask it “more coarse”? I see impressive depth in the latest outputs, but as with all technically proficient performers, you might just have to consciously scale it back.
  • nickelpro 1 hour ago
    The author has succeeded only in arguing one meaningless image factory produces images they find more aesthetically pleasing than another meaningless image factory.

    The framing implies they understand little of art at all; beyond gurgling and clapping like a child at the colors and shapes they find most stimulating.

    • andy99 8 minutes ago
      Well, birthdays are merely symbolic of how another year's gone by and how little we've grown. No matter how desperate we are that someday a better self will emerge, with each flicker of the candles on the cake we know it's not to be. That for the rest of our sad, wretched, pathetic lives, this is who we are to the bitter end. Inevitably, irrevocably. Happy birthday? No such thing.
    • brantmv 59 minutes ago
      Why say this in such a rude way?
      • dwb 33 minutes ago
        Because powerful interests are trying to hijack human creative pursuits in the interest of profit. None of the images in the post are art.
    • cluckindan 28 minutes ago
      Found the zealot.

      Is true art a hermetic endeavour which must be gate-kept to seal out the lesser folk?

      If so, then why lambast the lesser folk over their ignorance of the secret knowledge?