Google added AI image generation to their Google Earth product, expecting people would use it to visualize what a garden might look like on an empty lot. The Internet used it to generate images of disasters and bombs exploding in various cities. Google quickly pulled the feature.

Google published a statement on their official News From Google account and added an update to their official Google Earth announcement:

“Update, 7/31:
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.”

Stronger guardrails is what that feature should have had from the beginning. Many on X (formerly Twitter) questioned how out of touch Google engineers have to be to release such a thing without proper guardrails.

One user tweeted:

“You guys are living in a complete bubble. Step outside Silicon Valley for two seconds and you’ll realize no actual human wants AI sludge crammed into every corner of every product. Touch grass. Talk to actual people.”

I think they could have just asked Gemini for ideas of how image generation in Google Earth could be abused before releasing that feature.

Read the official announcement of the rollback here.

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Orla