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Google Launches New Satellite Image AI Tool, Alarming Researchers
Researchers warn the free rollout could make fabricated geolocated evidence easy to create and harder to verify.
- On Thursday, Google launched Nano Banana 2, its Gemini image model, inside Google Earth on the web, letting users click 'create image' and drop synthetic buildings or disasters onto real satellite maps for free.
- Unlike blank-box generators such as DALL-E or Midjourney, the tool inherits the credibility of the map it's drawn on, ensuring synthetic features match the location's true light and angle from real satellite data.
- Digital Digging investigator Henk van Ess typed single sentences into the tool and planted a nuclear plant in Iran and a bomb crater in Gaza in seconds, demonstrating how one sentence now replaces work that once needed screenshots and patience.
- 'I saw it on the map' has long been a reason to trust a claim, but experts warn this tool could break how Americans verify news by allowing users to drop synthetic events onto real coordinates.
- Google embeds an invisible SynthID watermark in every image to flag synthetic content, while pitching lighter uses like showing Pompeii as a Roman city or sketching community gardens onto empty lots.
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18 Articles
18 Articles
El PeriódicoReposted by 
informacion.es
informacion.esGoogle Earth’s new feature, which incorporates the Nano Banana generation AI model, allows realistic satellite images of fictitious events to be created, posing serious risks to the accuracy of information
·Barcelona, Spain
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Georgia Public BroadcastingReposted by 
npr
nprGoogle adds AI to satellite images, raising fears of deepfakes in the sky
Journalists, human rights advocates and open source analysts recoiled in horror at the move: "The opportunities for abuse and disinfo are literally boundless," said one.
·Atlanta, United States
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Google has extended its map program Earth with an AI function. Users can change any location worldwide by text input. An AI expert warns against possible abuse.
·Berlin, Germany
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Total News Sources18
Leaning Left4Leaning Right0Center5Last UpdatedBias Distribution56% Center
Bias Distribution
- 56% of the sources are Center
56% Center
L 44%
C 56%
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