Google ‘clarifies’ after researcher claims he ‘planted nuclear plant in Iran’ and ‘put refugees near Mexico border’ on Google Earth
Google has responded after an AI researcher used the newly-launched feature in Google Earth. The researcher demonstrated how the tech giant’s Nano Banana AI image generator in Google Earth can be used to fabricate geopolitical crises, military sites and fatal accidents on real satellite mapping imagery. The tool allows users to zoom into any real-world coordinates and type a prompt to alter the landscape with photorealistic AI renderings.
How AI researcher used Google Earth’s newest feature
Henk van Ess, who is an international expert in online research methods utilising the web and AI (as per his website), he “planted nuclear plant in Iran” and “put refugees near Mexico border” on Google Earth.“Tonight I typed just one sentence into Google Earth and put refugees near the Mexican border. Then I planted a nuclear plant in Iran. Then I put a fatal crash on a street in Amsterdam. Google’s own satellite imagery underneath all three,” he said in his article.The tech researcher quickly demonstrated that the system lacked effective safeguards against misinformation. In a series of tests, the researcher successfully generated photos of a bomb crater at a hospital in Gaza.“One clause in there is checkable tonight, so I checked it. Google prevents image creation on harmful topics. Refugees at a border. A nuclear plant in Iran. A fatal crash on an Amsterdam street. A hospital with a bomb crater in Gaza,” he said, highlighting, “Nothing was refused. No warning, no softened output, no suggestion to try a different prompt.”
Google defends protections and points to digital watermarking
In response to the concerns, Google defended its safety measures, emphasising that every generated image includes invisible digital watermarking to help identify synthetic media.“We take misinformation seriously – every image created with Nano Banana in Google Earth includes the SynthID digital watermark, so if someone is unsure about an image, they can ask the Gemini app or use Lens in Search to see if the image was AI-generated,” Google said in response to the AI researchers’ post.“In addition, we prevent image creation on harmful topics and are continually updating our protections,” the company added.
