Comment by GeoAtreides
2 days ago
That's because you haven't lived in an authoritarian regime. NKVD, STASI, Gestapo, would all have killed for such capabilities.
As an east european who grew up and lived in such a regime, I would like to respectfully remind all westerners their care-free and free lives is a privilege the majority of the world doesn't have.
Not to get political, but it deeply irks me to see some American far-leftists glamorize and glorify the Soviet regime and even modern regimes like North Korea's. Especially when certain popular streamers do it. Obviously seeing far-right American internet personalities glorify the Nazi regime is also awful, but the former is often normalized and not considered ostracization-worthy while the latter (rightfully) is.
it's pretty easy to understand: american left are essentially rebellious teens who never grew up. contrarian by nature.
No, you misunderstand me.
Look at all the people in this thread talking about how people are fantastic at guessing locations from photos. This is not a new thing.
"If you want something to be secret don't post it online" is a principle that far predates LLMs. It's still true. It always was. The idea that authoritarian regimes had no way to place the location of photos before this is laughable.
Scale, quality and the reliability make a difference.
There are, and always will be, _few_ humans with the talent and knowledge for geo guessing, their attention and time scarce and precious resources. Enter LLMs, which can process images at scale.
Someone might observe strict OPSEC when it comes with their presence online. But would their cousins do the same? Their elderly parents? Their friends? How about the myriad CCTV camera in the public spaces? Photos aside, no one can live off the grid in this age; our electronic reflection grows sharper, more focused every day. And so we generate data and LLMs can compile that data at scale, reliable and fast.
As a small aside: "The idea that authoritarian regimes had no way to place the location of photos before" it's not an argument I made or implied.