Google rolls back its fake satellite image machine

Last week, Google released a feature for Google Earth that let anyone use their Nano Banana image generation on satellite images. What could go wrong? Google pressed pause on the feature a day later. Geoff Brumfiel reporting for NPR:

In a posting on X on Thursday, the company said it “takes misinformation seriously.” The company noted that all images are marked with its SynthID watermark, which ensures it will be flagged as AI-generated in other Google tools such as Gemini. “In addition, we prevent image creation on harmful topics and are continually updating our protections,” it said.

But few in the open source community seemed reassured by Google’s statements. For van Ess, the decision particularly stings because Google Earth has long been regarded as one of the best tools to verify information posted on social media.

If Google continues to develop the AI tool, he said, it would mean that “the fake is made inside the thing people use to check whether pictures are true.”

There’s a fine line between imagination machine and fake image machine. Google seemingly forgot the downside of letting people alter reality in a few seconds.