How AI Falsifies Satellite Images: A Growing Problem of "Deepfake Geography"

What may appear to be an image of Tacoma is, in fact, a simulated one, created by transferring visual patterns of Beijing onto a map of a real Tacoma neighborhood. A fire in Central Park seems to appear as a smoke plume and a line of flames in a satellite image. Colorful lights on Diwali night in India, seen from space, seem to show widespread fireworks activity. Both images exemplify what a new University of Washington-led study calls "location spoofing." The photos -- created by different people, for different purposes -- are fake but look like genuine images of real places. And with the more sophisticated AI technologies available today, researchers warn that such "deepfake geography" could become a growing problem.