What is ChatGPT's new location-guessing trend?

The Studio Ghibli or Barbie doll box trend is so old school now, we have a new trend, but no one is going to hop on it like usual, because it is creepy. So, the internet’s latest obsession? Playing detective with ChatGPT. No, really. People are now uploading completely random, sometimes blurry AF pictures and asking ChatGPT to figure out where they were taken. And spoiler alert — it is actually scarily good at it.

What is ChatGPT's new location-guessing trend? | Credit: X

What is Chat GPT’s new trend, and why is it freaking everyone out?

This viral trend is turning ChatGPT into a virtual “GeoGuessr” champ. If you have not played it yet, GeoGuessr is a game where you are dropped into some random street view, and you have to guess where you are. Now, people are doing the same thing but with AI — and the AI is winning.

The geoguessing power of o3 is a really good sample of its agentic abilities. Between its smart guessing and its ability to zoom into images, to do web searches, and read text, the results can be very freaky.

I stripped location info from the photo & prompted “geoguess this” pic.twitter.com/KaQiXHUvYL

— Ethan Mollick (@emollick) April 17, 2025

Chat GPT’s latest AI model is scaring people

The buzz started after OpenAI dropped its latest AI models — o3 and o4-mini — with some next-level image reasoning powers. These models do not just “see” pictures, they analyse, zoom, crop, rotate, squint, and basically CSI their way to location guesses. Users on X (formerly Twitter) are sharing wild examples: from guessing the exact Williamsburg speakeasy by spotting a mounted purple rhino head, to pinpointing restaurants using just a blurry photo of a menu.

Wow, nailed it and not even a tree in sight. pic.twitter.com/bVcoe1fQ0Z

— swax (@swax) April 17, 2025

Why is it scary?

And here is the gag — it is not just relying on stuff like metadata or past conversations. The models are literally figuring it out based on visual cues and vibes. Which is equal parts impressive and terrifying.

this is a fun ChatGPT o3 feature. geoguessr! pic.twitter.com/HrcMIxS8yD

— Jason Barnes (@vyrotek) April 17, 2025

Sure, AI location-guessing has always been kind of a thing. But o3 is just built different. Compared to the older GPT-4o, o3 is often faster and eerily more accurate — though not always. In some cases, it flopped or got stuck. Still, that did not stop users from experimenting (and lowkey doxxing).

Why is it ringing privacy issues?

Naturally, this trend has raised privacy alarm bells. Like, what is stopping someone from screenshotting your Instagram Story and feeding it to ChatGPT for a reverse lookup? The whole thing screams digital stalking 101.

o3 is insane
I asked a friend of mine to give me a random photo
They gave me a random photo they took in a library
o3 knows it in 20 seconds and it's right pic.twitter.com/0K8dXiFKOY

— Yumi (@izyuuumi) April 17, 2025

After being called out, OpenAI responded saying the models were trained to refuse private info requests and that there are safeguards in place. But let’s be honest — when something is this good, it is only a matter of time before people figure out loopholes.

So yeah, ChatGPT just unlocked location detective mode… and now your blurry brunch pic might just expose your favourite coffee spot. Proceed with caution.