Google Nano Banana gives women hugs they miss and ones they never asked for

Google Nano Banana

Google’s new AI tool, Nano Banana, has everyone talking. Even Nvidia’s Jensen Huang is impressed, and everyday users are hooked too. It’s easy to see why. Among the free AI image tools out there, Nano Banana feels like the smartest in the room. It’s quick, precise, and shockingly accurate. Upload a photo, type out a prompt, and suddenly your imagination has a picture. As Google says, it lets you “imagine yourself in any world you can dream up.” A selfie with Princess Diana? A photo op with Indira Gandhi? Nano Banana delivers results that look straight out of reality.

On the surface, it seems like pure fun. You can try out new outfits, place yourself in exotic locations, or even blend multiple photos into one scene. Want your dog to look like a ballerina? Or yourself on a basketball court? Nano Banana makes it possible. It’s playful, creative, and technically brilliant.

But the tool is also deeply personal for some people. Those who lost their parents at a young age or never had many photos with them are using Nano Banana to create moments they could only dream of. They can generate images of themselves hugging their parents who have passed away, this way they can recreate connections that were missing in real life. For these users, the tool isn’t just fun, it can be comforting, nostalgic, even healing.

Yet, like all powerful tools, it carries a shadow. Nano Banana can also put people in situations they never consented to. Upload two random pictures and ask it to make them hug, and the AI will oblige. On the surface, it may look like a joke, but for the people in the images, especially women, it can feel deeply invasive. One of our own tests created a hyper-realistic picture of a team member with a Bollywood actor she has never met, and it looked convincing enough to pass as real. The tool can even conjure fake weddings or holidays. For women dealing with stalking or harassment online, this can pour fuel on the fire. It could also potentially be used to create fake profiles on social media.

Other AI platforms have learned to draw lines. They block prompts that could sexualize, humiliate, or misrepresent real people. Nano Banana, however, still lacks those guardrails. And that’s where the danger lies. Even a “lighthearted joke” can quickly cross into violation when someone’s likeness is used without consent.

To its credit, Google has added safeguards. Every image comes with a visible watermark and an invisible SynthID tag to mark it as AI-generated. But let’s be honest, watermarks can be erased in seconds, and invisible tags don’t soften the shock of seeing yourself in a place you never chose. Once an image is out in the world, it takes on a life of its own. It’s a bit like the photograph in the movie Back to the Future: it doesn’t matter if it’s altered, people believe what they see.

That being said, Nano Banana is an incredible tool. It lets you get creative without a formal degree in design, and it even gives comfort to those who have lost loved ones. But its very strength, making people look realistic in any scenario, is also what makes it potentially dangerous. Without proper safeguards, it could be used to place women or others in situations they never wanted, even as a joke.

Women and all users deserve control over their own image. They deserve to be respected, not edited into someone else’s story. Google has built something amazing, but the next step is just as important as the technology itself. The tech giant should ensure people are safe, respected, and never put in a place they did not choose to be.