Using loaded language like “deepfakes of disasters” is both disingenuous and cheapening of the word deepfake. Would they use the same words to describe a kid scribbling in some monsters on a paper road map? Because it’s the same thing.
What was even the point of this; what was the intended use case?
I’m serious, I have no idea who this is for. Other than to show people that their AI can badly superimpose pictures of Godzilla over maps.
It’s easier for the news and the government to deepfake things like “huge mobs of Mexican narcoterrorists just over the border” or “there’s a nuclear missile silo in Iran” or whatever with this.
It’s weird to make it public if that’s the case.
Nah, that just helps to normalize it and let people think it’s just harmless and fun.
Or erode all trust in imagery so when something real and terrible comes out no one believes it.
Don’t look up!
i’ll take a shot.
-
education: these are the pyramids of giza. this is what they used to look like.
-
real eatate: generate an image of how the development of somethjng would look
-
business: generate a map with detaled renederings of all their locations.
-
In large organizations when the order comes down from on high that ‘we are all in on whatever’ AI in this case, middle managers and product owners start looking for ways to ram that thing into their product so they can keep playing the game.
So it’s just another solution in search of a problem basically?
Isn’t this really the only valid reason for any AI image generation? Things I’ve AI image generated: 1) Godzilla riding a Unicycle B) Godzilla taking a math test #) Godzilla fixing a printer iv) Godzilla roasting a marshmallow with his breath V) My corporate logo with Godzilla attacking superimposed. None of the above is a joke.
I AM FUCKING TIRED OF THIS SHIT YOU WANT THE REAL REASON WE CREATED AI? Rick and Morty needed to run for millions of years but the actors, artists and creators would all be dead. So we created AI to immortalize them so they would make Rick and Morty for a million years.
I work in this space: you can use it to mock up commercial developments, changes in land use, etc., to see what it would look like. Somewhat useful when presenting rather dry architectural diagrams into realistic looking scenes.
Now, why it was broadly opened to the public is unclear to me other than being a flex?
you can use it to mock up commercial developments
Fair, but aren’t there better solutions for this already?
Depends on how you define “better.” You can generate many variants of a scene this way, at night say, or in snowy conditions. You can mock up emergency response situations. It’s part of the story you’re telling but not a straight up replacement.
I guess by better I mostly mean “without AI”
It’s worse than all that. I clicked on all the Xitter links so you wouldn’t have to, at the bottom is this post from this guy who was able to put a photorealistic image of a nuke plant in Iran, and a throng of migrants at the US-Mexican border, both of which didn’t exist in the source material:
https://www.digitaldigging.org/p/how-to-plant-a-nuclear-plant-in-iran
We know that this didn’t come out of a vacuum, this capability has been there and was only recently released to the public. We also know that this Administration is in very close with all the tech bros enshittifying everything, and they like to lie, especially about history.
So, now we know what the October Surprise before this election is going to be: the Administration is going to use fake satellite imagery to rile everyone up. We’ll be lucky if they don’t drop some nukes in the process…
photorealistic image of a nuke plan
“Photorealistic”. It seems a screenshot from SimCity 4
Same for the fake trump statue
Maybe the hallucinated text nearby the white house has a bit of truth? It says “The Whine House [something in Cyrillic] pederast”
And also the fake crater nearby the hospital in Gaza is blatantly fake: IRL there’s only the crater instead of the hospital as unfortunately all the patients and doctors were terrorists
“Henk van Ess, for example, created extremely realistic deepfakes, including fake refugee camps along the US-Mexico border and a nuclear plant in Iran.”
I love how he instantly tried some of reasons the US government would want this thing to exist. Unfortunately I imagine the government would still be able to get access to it, so I expect to see news that Trump has posted loads of images of these same topics along with images of him wearing Space Marine armor and bringing the light of justice to brown people 'round the globe.
this is one of the things that make me love humans
Is this why the actually good Google Earth Pro is being sunsetted for the much worse web-only version? So they can push horseshit like this on us?
Paywall
Google Earth haha. Good thing I wiped that nasty ass shit off my PCs a year ago when I saw “Gulf of America.”
I’m glad they’re finally throwing all their legacy software down the AI garbage disposal.
They’re actually killing the PC version next year, which is actually a problem.
It’s the goto solution for sharing GIS layers for free using a simple platform. Anybody can download Google Earth Pro for free, and we can export KML/KMZ files from ESRI or QGIS that will be viewable over fairly recent satellite imagery without having to pay thousands for software and/or imagery licensing.
With plugins QGIS can do this on its own though. Just use quickmapservices or manually import the Google imagery (still available online)
I use QGIS for a living. Adding layers and image services is easy for me, but not to someone who doesn’t even know what GIS is. I couldn’t teach someone how to use it in seconds like I can GE, which consists of “Open Google Earth, and click and drag the file into the window”.
And with GE, you don’t have to license the satellite imagery or teach someone how to add web-based tile services to GQIS.
They can also use the draw tool in GE and right-click the drawing and export a file I can open in QGIS or ESRI without them having to know anything about projections or datums.
deleted by creator
I have a degree in GIS and use QGIS almost every day. Of course I know it’s better for many things than Google Earth (though GE is still a better viewer). But even then - it’s only better if you take the time to learn to use it.
I can teach someone to drag a kml into GE in seconds. I can’t teach them QGIS.
My neighbor about to be host to several mercenaries
Oh good. They made an “anger boomer” button.
