AI Can Alter Geospatial Data To Create Deepfake Geography - AI Summary

So, using satellite photos of three cities and drawing upon methods used to manipulate video and audio files, a team of researchers set out to identify new ways of detecting fake satellite photos, warn of the dangers of falsified geospatial data and call for a system of geographic fact-checking. In 2019, the director of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, the organization charged with supplying maps and analyzing satellite images for the U.S. Department of Defense, implied that AI-manipulated satellite images can be a severe national security threat. When applied to the field of mapping, the algorithm essentially learns the characteristics of satellite images from an urban area, then generates a deepfake image by feeding the characteristics of the learned satellite image characteristics onto a different base map -- similar to how popular image filters can map the features of a human face onto a cat. Next, the researchers combined maps and satellite images from three cities -- Tacoma, Seattle and Beijing -- to compare features and create new images of one city, drawn from the characteristics of the other two. Low-rise buildings and greenery mark the "Seattle-ized" version of Tacoma on the bottom left, while Beijing's taller buildings, which AI matched to the building structures in the Tacoma image, cast shadows -- hence the dark appearance of the structures in the image on the bottom right.