Google has disabled an AI image-generation feature linked to its Google Earth satellite-imaging product, after researchers showed they could easily use the tool to create realistic faked images that could be used for disinformation.
The company integrated its Nano Banana 2 AI image-generation feature into Google Earth, allowing users to modify the satellite imagery they were viewing and download and share the results.
But researchers found that the safeguards Google had built into the tool were easily bypassed.
Image credit: NASA
Henk van Ess, an open-source researcher, created fake imagery of a nuclear plant in Iran, a bombed hospital in Gaza and a fatal car crash in Amsterdam, and others were able to do much the same.
