Deepfake Satellite Imagery Poses a Not-so-Distant Threat

Long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo quotes the Verge's warning about 'deepfake geography: AI-generated images of cityscapes and countryside.'

Specifically, geographers are concerned about the spread of fake, AI-generated satellite imagery. Such pictures could mislead in a variety of ways. They could be used to create hoaxes about wildfires or floods, or to discredit stories based on real satellite imagery... Deepfake geography might even be a national security issue, as geopolitical adversaries use fake satellite imagery to mislead foes...

The first step to tackling these issues is to make people aware there's a problem in the first place, says Bo Zhao, an assistant professor of geography at the University of Washington. Zhao and his colleagues recently published a paper on the subject of 'deep fake geography,' which includes their own experiments generating and detecting this imagery... As part of their study, Zhao and his colleagues created software to generate deepfake satellite images, using the same basic AI method (a technique known as generative adversarial networks, or GANs) used in well-known programs like ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com. They then created detection software that was able to spot the fakes based on characteristics like texture, contrast, and color. But as experts have warned for years regarding deepfakes of people, any detection tool needs constant updates to keep up with improvements in deepfake generation.

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