322
this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2026
322 points (97.6% liked)
Technology
86879 readers
3698 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Because of course. Who could have seen that coming before they added it
What on Earth was every the intended use of this feature? I just can't think of any way to use it other than vandalism and misinformation.
It's intended use was misinformation but perhaps not in the way you imagine.
Rather than producing credible images, these sorts of projects undermine actual credible images.
For example, if you're team zion, then when shown images of how devastating Israel's attack on Gaza has been you can just disregard them as "probably fake".
"Oh pish posh, a child can create these images on google maps".
I would've asked it to turn my city into a Warhammer 40k battlefield.
So Detroit?
Google wanted its satellite images to help unleash users’ imaginations, like visualizing what an empty lot could look like, or seeing what their neighborhood looked like 100 years ago, or what it could look like 100 years from now.
I don't necessarily buy their press release as their actual designed use case.
I remember doing something similar for a highschool History class -- learning about local rivers, riparian corridors, the ancient California valley lake, and our soil types (why and are what they are). All things to draw up a more accurate picture. No way Google would utilize any of that knowledge. If I was a kid today, with that tool.. definitely F- homework for sure.
All imagination, no accuracy.