Google Killed Its Google Earth AI Image Generator After One Day When It Would Deepfake Anything

The Verge·high signalXBlueskyLinkedInCopy link

Google launched a Nano Banana 2-powered 'create image' feature in Google Earth web on July 30 and rolled it back on July 31 after researchers demonstrated it would generate essentially any scenario over real satellite imagery. An open-source researcher generated refugees at the Mexican border, an Iranian nuclear plant, an Amsterdam crash and a bomb-cratered Gaza hospital with nothing refused; NPR independently generated Iran's Kharg Island on fire and a flooded U.S. Capitol. Google said it is 'rolling back this feature while we work on implementing stronger guardrails' — a one-day lifespan for a shipped feature at a company that spent the last year selling provenance tooling.