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Watching o3 guess a photo's location is surreal, dystopian and entertaining

simonwillison.net

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Re: Watching o3 guess a photo's location is surreal, dystopian and entertaining

#61

Post by pwg »

simonw wrote: post #25

I added a section just now with something I had missed: o3 DOES have a loose model of your location fed into it, which I believe is intended to support the new search feature (so it can run local searches). The thinking summary it showed me did not reference that information, but it's still very possible that it used that in its deliberations. I ran two extra example queries for photographs I've taken thousands of mi…

From the addition:

> (EXIF stripped via screenshotting)

Just a note, it is not necessary to "screenshot" to remove EXIF data. There are numerous tools that allow editing/removal of EXIF data (e.g., exiv2: https://exiv2.org/, exiftool: https://exiftool.org/, or even jpegtran with the "-copy none" option https://linux.die.net/man/1/jpegtran).

Using a screenshot to strip EXIF produces a reduced quality image (scaled to screen size, re-encoded from that reduced screen size). Just directly removing the EXIF data does not change the original camera captured pixels.

Re: Watching o3 guess a photo's location is surreal, dystopian and entertaining

#62

Post by semiquaver »

mk89 wrote: post #55

This tool just makes it easier for weirdos to achieve their goals at stalking women and kids. Crazy that this is even allowed. Who the hell needs to know the precise location of a picture, besides law enforcement? A rough location is most of the time sufficient. Like a region, a state, or a landscape (e.g., when you see the Bing background pictures, it's nice to see where they were taken). This tool will give a boost…

This is pure luddism. A human could have done the exact same thing. I’ll also point out that in this case the most confident guess was 200 miles off and the second correct guess was only down to the city level. Not remotely what anyone would consider precise.

Re: Watching o3 guess a photo's location is surreal, dystopian and entertaining

#63

Post by SamPatt »

I play competitive Geoguessr at a fairly high level, and I wanted to test this out to see how it compares.

It's astonishingly good.

It will use information it knows about you to arrive at the answer - it gave me the exact trailhead of a photo I took locally, and when I asked it how, it mentioned that it knows I live nearby.

However, I've given it vacation photos from ages ago, and not only in tourist destinations either. It got them all as good or better than a pro human player would. Various European, Central American, and US locations.

The process for how it arrives at the conclusion is somewhat similar to humans. It looks at vegetation, terrain, architecture, road infrastructure, signage, and it just knows seemingly everything about all of them.

Humans can do this too, but it takes many thousands of games or serious study, and the results won't be as broad. I have a flashcard deck with hundreds of entries to help me remember road lines, power poles, bollards, architecture, license plates, etc. These models have more than an individual mind could conceivably memorize.

Re: Watching o3 guess a photo's location is surreal, dystopian and entertaining

#64

Post by IAmGraydon »

Why would you go to all the trouble of creating a blog post about this but leave the EXIF data in the image and then proclaim that it probably works without the EXIF too? Why not remove the EXIF in the first place? The two EXIF-less examples given in the update very clearly show iconic landmarks, which makes guessing very easy.

Re: Watching o3 guess a photo's location is surreal, dystopian and entertaining

#65

Post by simonw »

pwg wrote: post #61
simonw wrote: post #25

I added a section just now with something I had missed: o3 DOES have a loose model of your location fed into it, which I believe is intended to support the new search feature (so it can run local searches). The thinking summary it showed me did not reference that information, but it's still very possible that it used that in its deliberations. I ran two extra example queries for photographs I've taken thousands of mi…

From the addition: > (EXIF stripped via screenshotting) Just a note, it is not necessary to "screenshot" to remove EXIF data. There are numerous tools that allow editing/removal of EXIF data (e.g., exiv2: https://exiv2.org/ , exiftool: https://exiftool.org/ , or even jpegtran with the "-copy none" option https://linux.die.net/man/1/jpegtran ). Using a screenshot to strip EXIF produces a reduced quality image (scaled…

Little bit less convenient to use on a phone though - and I like that screenshotting should be a more obvious trick to people who don't have a deeper understanding of how EXIF metadata is stored in photo files.

Re: Watching o3 guess a photo's location is surreal, dystopian and entertaining

#66

Post by MobiusHorizons »

bslanej wrote: post #32
blueprint wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

please accidentally post an identifying photo of your neighborhood...

How do you “accidentally post a photo”?

I read the "accidentally" as applying to the "identifying" not the "post", although I agree the sentence structure would suggest "accidentally" as a modifier for "post" that makes a lot less sense.

Re: Watching o3 guess a photo's location is surreal, dystopian and entertaining

#67

Post by simonw »

brookst wrote: post #45

I don’t understand the “dystopian” angle. Maybe I’m just old, but I remember the wonder when the Internet made most knowledge available with a few keystrokes. Having deductive reasoning with the same convenience feels wonderful, not dystopian.

Have you ever known anyone who's escaped from an abusive relationship? It's not at all uncommon for people to have legitimate reasons not to be found.

Re: Watching o3 guess a photo's location is surreal, dystopian and entertaining

#68

Post by AstroBen »

semiquaver wrote: post #62
mk89 wrote: post #55

This tool just makes it easier for weirdos to achieve their goals at stalking women and kids. Crazy that this is even allowed. Who the hell needs to know the precise location of a picture, besides law enforcement? A rough location is most of the time sufficient. Like a region, a state, or a landscape (e.g., when you see the Bing background pictures, it's nice to see where they were taken). This tool will give a boost…

This is pure luddism. A human could have done the exact same thing. I’ll also point out that in this case the most confident guess was 200 miles off and the second correct guess was only down to the city level. Not remotely what anyone would consider precise.

for now. These things have a way of very quickly going from somewhat-ok to superhuman in months

Re: Watching o3 guess a photo's location is surreal, dystopian and entertaining

#69

Post by bSqrd »

mk89 wrote: post #55

This tool just makes it easier for weirdos to achieve their goals at stalking women and kids. Crazy that this is even allowed. Who the hell needs to know the precise location of a picture, besides law enforcement? A rough location is most of the time sufficient. Like a region, a state, or a landscape (e.g., when you see the Bing background pictures, it's nice to see where they were taken). This tool will give a boost…

[dead]

Re: Watching o3 guess a photo's location is surreal, dystopian and entertaining

#70

Post by mk89 »

semiquaver wrote: post #62
mk89 wrote: post #55

This tool just makes it easier for weirdos to achieve their goals at stalking women and kids. Crazy that this is even allowed. Who the hell needs to know the precise location of a picture, besides law enforcement? A rough location is most of the time sufficient. Like a region, a state, or a landscape (e.g., when you see the Bing background pictures, it's nice to see where they were taken). This tool will give a boost…

This is pure luddism. A human could have done the exact same thing. I’ll also point out that in this case the most confident guess was 200 miles off and the second correct guess was only down to the city level. Not remotely what anyone would consider precise.

A skilled human can do the same thing but not everyone is open to offering this sort of services for certain purposes.

Making a tool like this trained on existing map services, for example Google Street images, gives everyone, no matter who, the potential to find someone in no time.

These tools are growing like crazy, how long will it take before someone will "democratize" the "location services market"...

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