The latest viral ChatGPT trend is doing 'reverse location search' from photos
There’s a somewhat concerning new trend going viral: People are using ChatGPT to figure out the location shown in pictures. This week, OpenAI released its newest AI models, o3 and o4-mini, both of which can uniquely “reason” through uploaded images. In practice, the models can crop, rotate, and zoom in on photos — even blurry and distorted ones — to thoroughly analyze them.
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 particular, is quite good at deducing cities, landmarks, and even restaurants and bars from subtle visual clues.
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 particular, is quite good at deducing cities, landmarks, and even restaurants and bars from subtle visual clues.
Privacy Concerns
It’s an obvious potential privacy issue. There’s nothing preventing a bad actor from screenshotting, say, a person’s Instagram Story and using ChatGPT to try to doxx them. o3 is insane
Several of our tests failed — o3 got stuck in a loop, unable to arrive at an answer it was reasonably confident about, or volunteered a wrong location. Users on X noted, too, that o3 can be pretty far off in its location deductions.
AI Models Comparison
During testing, TechCrunch found that GPT-4o arrived at the same correct answer as o3 more often than not — and took less time. However, there were instances where o3 outperformed GPT-4o. For example, o3 correctly identified a picture of a purple, mounted rhino head in a dimly-lit bar as being from a Williamsburg speakeasy, while GPT-4o guessed it was from a U.K. pub.
Conclusion
The trend of using AI models like o3 for reverse location searches highlights the emerging risks associated with advanced reasoning AI models. OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, needs to address the potential privacy concerns and safeguards associated with such practices, as there currently appear to be few protections in place.
OpenAI has stated that they have trained their models to refuse requests for private or sensitive information and actively monitor and take action against abuse of their usage policies on privacy. However, as the trend continues to gain traction, more comprehensive measures may be necessary to protect user privacy.
