Google has rolled back an artificial intelligence feature in Google Earth that let users generate modified satellite imagery, less than a day after it launched, following criticism from researchers who warned it could be used to spread misinformation and disinformation.
The feature, announced July 30, integrated Google’s Nano Banana 2 AI image generator with Google Earth’s satellite, aerial and 3D imagery. “For the first time, you can generate custom images using Google Earth’s satellite, aerial, and 3D imagery alongside Nano Banana, which creates concepts grounded in the real world,” Bryan Horowitz, product manager for Google Earth, wrote in a company blog post.
Critics were quick to demonstrate the risks. Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins wrote on Bluesky that Google Earth, “a tool often used as a source of satellite imagery to verify photos and videos, has added a feature that allows you to alter satellite imagery with AI.” He shared an AI-modified image showing a giant golden statue of President Donald Trump looming over the White House.
BBC Verify researchers testing the tool produced images of a collapsed Eiffel Tower, a sinkhole swallowing the Great Pyramid of Giza, and Russian tanks in Ukraine’s capital. AI and misinformation expert Henk van Ess generated a fake nuclear power plant in Iran, a refugee camp on the US-Mexico border, and a fake hospital in Gaza with a bomb crater beside it.
“The forgery does not have to look convincing on its own. It inherits the credibility of the map it was born on,” van Ess said, describing Google as allowing “invented” imagery to be “welded to genuine coordinates, drawn on genuine imagery.”
Within a day, Google announced on the social platform X that it was rolling back the feature. “We’ve seen geospatial professionals using this feature for a range of useful purposes, however we’ve also seen people sharing screenshots of generated imagery that appear to violate our policies,” the company said in a statement. “We’re rolling back this feature in Google Earth while we work on implementing stronger guardrails.” Ars Technica confirmed the feature had become inaccessible to Google Earth users shortly after the announcement.
Google said AI content created by its tools carries invisible watermarks indicating it is fake or manipulated, and that users unsure about an image can check it with the Gemini chatbot app or use Lens in its search. BBC Verify found the checks generally worked on images produced by the new feature, but also found it possible to circumvent them and trick Gemini into misidentifying manipulated images.
Before removing the feature, Google had touted uses such as depicting completed real estate projects or letting teachers and students transform the ruins of Pompeii into a “hyper-realistic view” of the town as it looked in 78 CE. The episode underscores the tension between generative AI features and the trust that journalists, researchers and the public place in mapping tools used to verify what is real.
Sources: Ars Technica, TechCrunch, BBC
Author: Technology Desk
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