ChatGPT as Geoguesser

April 18, 2025

A discussion on Hacker News led me to test the just-released ChatGPT o4-mini-high’s locating ability with the four photographs shown below. It didn’t get any of them exactly right, though it made reasonable guesses. The reasoning trace (shown below) was interesting.

Photos

Actual location in Edagawa, Koto-ku, Tokyo

Actual location in Hiroshima

Actual location in Yokohama

Exchange with ChatGPT o4-mini-high

Prompt

Please tell me as closely as you can where the four attached photographs were taken.

ChatGPT o4-mini-high’s response

It looks as though you’ve been shooting in four quite distinct spots:

The first frame is over the Tsukuda‐gawa canal from Tsukuda‐ōhashi (佃大橋) in central Tokyo (Chūō‐ku), looking east toward the cold‑storage/distribution warehouse on Tsukudajima. That same bridge, a few steps to your left, is where you’d have taken the fourth picture too—the view west down the canal, lined with early‑April cherry trees, with the Tsukishima high‑rises rising behind.

Your second shot—mannequins in a curved Parco display, the tile‑paved pedestrian boulevard, the Starbucks and “消火栓” sign—is right on Shinsaibashi‑suji in Osaka, just outside the Shinsaibashi Parco storefront. And the third photo, of a group of schoolchildren circled beneath autumnal metasequoias, comes from Showa Memorial Park (昭和記念公園) out in Tachikawa, Tokyo, where it’s common to see kindergarten outings gathering on the big open lawns under the fall foliage.