{"slug": "google-earths-ai-deepfake-tool-only-lasted-one-day", "title": "Google Earth’s AI deepfake tool only lasted one day", "summary": "Google shut down the Google Earth feature launched Thursday that let users edit satellite images with AI text prompts, after users generated deepfakes such as a bomb crater near a hospital in Gaza. Digital Digging's Henk van Ess demonstrated the tool could create harmful images and fool AI detection tools, prompting Google to roll back the feature to implement stronger guardrails.", "body_md": "Google has shut down Google Earth feature it launched Thursday that allowed users to edit satellite images with text prompts using AI. The tool essentially let users create AI deepfakes of the real world using text prompts; *Digital Digging*’s Henk van Ess, for example, [intentionally generated](https://www.digitaldigging.org/p/how-to-plant-a-nuclear-plant-in-iran) images adding things like refugees near the Mexican border and a bomb crater by a hospital in Gaza. On Thursday, Google’s [initial response](https://x.com/NewsFromGoogle/status/2083024627761082702?s=20) to van Ess noted that images generated with Nano Banana 2 in Google Earth included a digital watermark and that the company prevented “image creation on harmful topics.”\n\n# Google Earth’s AI deepfake tool only lasted one day\n\nLetting people easily alter images with an AI prompt was a bad idea.\n\nLetting people easily alter images with an AI prompt was a bad idea.\n\nOne day later, Google’s [new statement](https://x.com/NewsFromGoogle/status/2083249962150760610?s=20) says that “We know that people uniquely trust Google Earth for a reliable view of the world. We’ve seen geospatial professionals using this feature for a range of useful purposes, however we’ve also seen people sharing screenshots of generated imagery that appear to violate our policies. So we’re rolling back this feature in Google Earth while we work on implementing stronger guardrails. It’s important to note that generated images didn’t appear in the main Google Earth experience for others to see and were watermarked as AI generated.”\n\nvan Ess pointed out that he was able to fool Hive’s AI detection tool with a video generated in Google Earth, showing how the generated media could spread despite the watermarks, and said in his testing, “Nothing was refused, nothing was softened, and nothing suggested I try a different prompt.”\n\n**Follow topics and authors** from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/google-earths-ai-deepfake-tool-only-lasted-one-day", "canonical_source": "https://www.theverge.com/tech/973943/google-earth-ai-image-generation-deepfake-tool", "published_at": "2026-07-31 19:13:29+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-31 19:18:13.976841+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["generative-ai", "ai-safety", "ai-policy"], "entities": ["Google", "Google Earth", "Nano Banana 2", "Henk van Ess", "Digital Digging", "Hive"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/google-earths-ai-deepfake-tool-only-lasted-one-day", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/google-earths-ai-deepfake-tool-only-lasted-one-day.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/google-earths-ai-deepfake-tool-only-lasted-one-day.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/google-earths-ai-deepfake-tool-only-lasted-one-day.jsonld"}}