The Latest Viral Chatgpt Trend is Doing ‘Reverse Location Search’ from Photos
There's A Somewhat Concerning New Trend Going Viral This Week, OpenAI Released Its Newest AI Models, O3 and O4-Mini,
The Latest Viral Chatgpt Trend is Doing ‘Reverse Location Search’ from Photos
There’s a Somewhat Concerning New Trend Going Viral
This Week, OpenAI Released Its Newest AI Models, O3 and O4-Mini, Both of What Can Uniquely “Reason” though uploaded images. In Practice, The Models Can Crop, Rotate, and Zoom in the Photos
These image-Analyzing Capabilities, Paired with the Models’ Ability to Search the Web, Make for a Potent Location-Finding Tool. Users on x quickly discovered that o3, in the parties, IS Quite Good at Duucing Cities, Landmarks, and Even Restaurants and Bars From Subtle Visual Clues.
Wow, naili it and note Even. pic.twitter.com/bvcoe1fq0z
– SWAX (@swax) April 17, 2025
In Many Casses, The Models Don’t Apple to Be Drawing on “Memories” of Past Chatgpt Conversations, Or EXIF DATA, WHICH IS THE METADATA ATTACHED TO THAT DETAILS SUCH ASEN.
X is filled with exposes of users giving chatgpt restaurant menus, Neighborhood Snaps, Facades, and Self-Portraits, and Instructing O3 to IMAGINE it’s Playing “Geoguessr,” An online Game That Challenges Players to GUESS Locations … images.
This is a fungpt o3 feature. Geoguessr! pic.twitter.com/hrcmixs8yd
– Jason Barnes (@vyrote) April 17, 2025
Its an obvio potntal private issue. There’s Nothing Preventing A Bad Actor from Screenshotting, Say, A Person’s Instagram Story and Using Chatgpt to Try To Dox Them Them Them.
o3 is human
I Asked A Friend of Mine to Give Me a Random Photo
They gave me a random photo these toook in a library
O3 Knows it in 20 Seconds and It’s Right Pic.twitter.com/0k8dxifkoy– Yumi (@izyuuumi) April 17, 2025
Of Course, this Could Be Done Even Before the Launch of O3 and O4-Mini. Techcrunch Ran a Number of Photos Through O3 and An Older Model with the image-reasoning capabilities, GPT-4O, To Compare The Models’ Location-Gueessing Skills. Surprisingly, GPT-4o Arrived at the Same, Correct Aswer As O3 More Often Than Not-Ando Less Time.
There. Given A Picture of Purple, Mounted Rhino Head in a Dimly-Lit Bar, O3 Correctly Answered that it was a Williamsburg Speakeasy-Not, AS GPT-4O Guessed, A UK PUB.
That’s not to suggest o3 is flawless in this regard. Several of our tests failed – O3 Got Stuck in A Loop, Unable to Arrive at An Answer Confident About, Or Voluntered A Wrong Location. Users on x noted, too, that o3 can be pretty head office in its location deducations.
But the trend illustration some of the emergıng risks presented by more capable, so-Called Reasoning AI Models. Chatgpt, and OpenAI, The Company Behind Chatgpt, from Doesn’tan’t in the Safety Report for O3 and O4-Mini.
We’ve reached out to openai for comment. We’ll update out if they respond.
