(Vienna) Google Maps announced on Saturday the removal of dozens of images generated via artificial intelligence (AI) by environmental activists to warn of the disastrous future effects of climate change on emblematic places in Austria.
Danube and dry lakes, muddy glacier, stony Alpine peaks… the collective Letzte Generation (Last Generation) published this week real shots but reworked with AI techniques as if they had been taken in the future, in May 2070.
The American group Google was quick to react.
“We delete the photos in question which do not respect our policy,” a spokesperson told AFP, recalling “the ban on content not based on a real experience or not faithfully representing a place” .
The NGO said it was “not surprised” by the reaction of the tech giant which “ignores the climate catastrophe, like the authorities and large companies in general”, according to activist Marina Hagen-Canaval.
She had explained the day before that she wanted through this initiative to raise awareness among tourists who “prepare their vacations with Google Maps” about the risks of climate change.
2070 is “a not-so-distant deadline,” she emphasizes, “that those like us who are between 30 and 40 years old have a good chance of seeing with their own eyes.”
Letzte Generation, known for attracting attention through the multiplication of spectacular actions, such as blocking roads, this time chose the “digital” terrain.
Investing on the web means being able to transmit the message to “even more people”, being “where the people are”: “on the internet as well as in the street”, summarizes the activist, promising other initiatives “ creative”.
Due to greenhouse gas emissions generated by human activities, the average global temperature over the last decade has increased by nearly 1.2°C since the pre-industrial era, against a backdrop of multiplication and intensification of deadly heatwaves, droughts and devastating floods across the world.