Google rolled back Friday a new feature allowing Google Earth users to generate artificial intelligence (AI) visualizations on top of the service's satellite imagery, following a furious backlash from researchers and open-source intelligence experts about the potential for disinformation."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," a Google spokesperson said in a statement to AFP. "So we're rolling back this feature in Google Earth while we work on implementing stronger guardrails."
"We know that people uniquely trust Google Earth for a reliable view of the world," the statement added.
The "create image" tool, unveiled Thursday, had integrated Google's Nano Banana 2 image-generation technology into Google Earth, letting users zoom into locations and build pictures in seconds based on the program's satellite, aerial and 3D-mapping data.
Google had described it as a way to "visualize history, create real estate plans and more."
But disinformation researchers warned that it could enable bad actors to misuse Google Earth, a key resource for fact-checking and verification, to create realistic geospatial fakes.
