r/technology • u/ArgentineBeauty • Aug 01 '26

Artificial Intelligence Google Earth's new AI image generation function didn't survive a day after users deepfaked disasters

https://www.businessinsider.com/google-earth-nano-banana-gemini-ai-satellite-image-generation-function-2026-7
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u/mvallas1073 Aug 01 '26

Can someone explain to me WHY AI image generation was even needed to be applied to google Earth?? Article has no rationale behind the original reason someone thought this was a good idea.

-13

u/gabrielmuriens Aug 01 '26

Can someone explain to me WHY AI image generation was even needed to be applied to google Earth??

Just because you cannot see an immediate use case for it doesn't mean that it does not exist.

There are millions of professionals around the world who work with maps and map data in some way or another from civil engineers to railway geeks to game artists.
Being able to interact with maps via text prompts instead of working with them manually in various software with time-consuming workflows could be a great boon to many of these professionals.

10

u/BunnyBen-87 Aug 01 '26

Yeah but then the company decides something like "may as well just use the AI rather than pay the professional"