Comment by GeoAtreides

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.