Google Earth releases, swiftly retracts AI feature to make fake satellite images

Google briefly added an AI feature to Google Earth that could generate altered satellite-style images, then rolled it back after criticism.

The concern is that it could make fake satellite imagery easier to produce, undermining fact-checking, journalism, and trust in geospatial evidence.

Google has promoted safeguards like Gemini and SynthID, but the episode raised questions about policy bypasses and the limits of watermarking.

The move also highlighted risks to the credibility of real Earth-observation data such as Copernicus Sentinel-2.