Selling Trust From Orbit
Selling Trust From Orbit Satellite images are plentiful, affordable, and easy to fake. Providers will benefit from curbing their misuse. High-resolution satellite imagery has never been easier to buy, or to fake. For a brief window last week, the world’s most popular digital globe, Google Earth, let users manipulate satellite images with AI to create fakes grounded in real terrain. Backlash prompted the company to roll back the feature after less than a day.
Why it matters
Reliable satellite images are essential for security, journalism and disaster relief, but growing fakes threaten their credibility.