Current Events > YOU are the product. Niantic used Pokemon GO to mine user data for A.I. project

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2024/11/23/niantic-pokemon-go-data-ai-map/76488340007/

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/1/1a9ded9d.jpg

Players of Pokemon Go may not have realized it, but they've been training more than their Pokemon.
Niantic, the developer behind the popular mobile game Pokemon Go, announced last week it is building an AI model to map the physical world. This "large geospatial model" would utilize data collected from playersto
"achieve spatial intelligence,"
the company said in a blog post.
Pokemon Go
, first released in 2016, is an augmented reality game where players use their mobile phones to find and catch virtual Pokemon in the real world. In the game, which has had more than
600 million downloads
since release, players can also collect items at PokeStops and battle at gyms, which are both located at real-world landmarks.
Niantic's model is training and processing data using geolocation information from scans players submit of those real-world locations while playing Pokemon Go and other Niantic games.

"Over the past five years, Niantic has focused on building our Visual Positioning System (VPS), which uses a single image from a phone to determine its position and orientation using a 3D map built from people scanning interesting locations in our games and Scaniverse," the company said in the announcement.
The company said it currently has 10 million scanned locations from around the world for use with its VPS, with about 1 million new scans each week.
The model will process these geolocated images and create a 3D map, while also filling in information about geographic locations, "implementing a shared understanding of geographic locations, and comprehending places yet to be fully scanned," according to the blog post.
Companies looking for more ways to utilize customer data is becoming the "new normal," Anton Dahbura, the executive director of the Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins University, told USA TODAY.
Niantic said the data is unique since it is taken from a "pedestrian perspective," unlike other mapping systems that rely on images captured by vehicles and may not include places inaccessible to cars.

According to Niantic's privacy policy, the company collects location data, and other personal data, such as name and email address. The privacy policy outlines what is and isn't shared with third-party vendors, but not what the company does with the data. Niantic has a separate privacy policy for children who play the developer's games, and a portal where parents can set up and manage their child's profile.
"It's a typical problem with data privacy and the state of technology today," Dahbura said. "In fact, it's almost par for the course that companies are looking for ways to use their data, and it's even expected by investors."
It's understandable for users to worry about how their collected personal data is being stored or shared.
"Even with the best intentions, having troves of data that contain so much personal information can be dangerous," he said. "It can fall into the wrong hands, there can be a major data breach, and so on."
For users who are worried about their privacy, Dahbura suggests players think carefully about their usage.
"Use it exclusively in very public places, not places that you consider to be private, such as the interior of your home," he said.
Users should also minimize having other people in images, "especially your loved ones," he said.
Players should also be aware of location and how it is interwoven into so much personal data.
"A lot of people really underestimate the importance of location data," Dahbura said. "Our critical infrastructure is much broader than people realize, including transportation systems, pharmaceutical, financial, food manufacturing and so on. If people with bad intentions figure out that you have access to these kinds of facilities, it can be used not only against you but also against national security."

When everyone worked to build this, they shouldn't be allowed to profit off it substantially.
All A.I. built off of the public doing things needs to be publically owned.

If you aren't paying for the product, it's because you are the product. No exceptions.

Glad I never got into Pokmon Go

reincarnator07 posted...

If you aren't paying for the product, it's because you are the product. No exceptions.

Pokemon GO had a shop and people did infact buy stuff.
The real problem is two things:

1. The public is idiotic in the value of their data
2. The government needs to make laws to protect that data and its value but they refused to do so

In the end we are all building this great A.I. that can make the world a better place but as of now only the rich stand to exploit for all it is worth despite it being impossible for them to do without the masses.

See this is a good argument for UBI. Some people did work for free. That work was valuable. What if instead they were paid for it?

Dose 1st two weeks of pokemon go were amazing, sad everyone stopped playing after dat initial release doe

I have only ever seen really old people playing it in Japan (like retirement age). What's it like in America (or wherever you are at)?

Haven't played it in years, tbh. The novelty wore off. Plus I've always been like that with Pokemon anyway, where I never finish the games.

Niantic re-uses their tech stack for everything, so this isn't just Pokemon Go players but Monster Hunter Now and Ingress players.

lol yeah, i'm not exactly surprised

ngl, the 1st 2 weeks of Pokemon Go are some of my favorite video game memories ever. Literally EVERYONE on the street was playing it and it was a lot of fucking fun. Then they got rid of the steps and Pokevision and it all went downhill from there >_> Also the fact that you could beat a gym and literally someone else could just swipe it from you while you were on the results screen was hilariously fucked up lol. I stopped playing after about 2 months it came out, but the beginning was pretty epic.

duh

reincarnator07 posted...

If you aren't paying for the product, it's because you are the product. No exceptions.

this is true they are scraping and selling all your data to make money

WingsOfGood posted...

Niantic's model is training and processing data using geolocation information from scans players submit of those real-world locations while playing Pokemon Go and other Niantic games.

That's why I stopped scanning stuff a long time ago.

I still play it, mainly just at work to waste time though.

Compared to shit like selling personal data, using people as live drones doesnt seem particularly egregious to me. No different than Captcha being used to train AI.

thats fucked up got an article i can share around

This shouldn't be surprising. Niantic's previous game encouraged people to go around and take pictures of interesting places. Those became Pokestops in Pokemon GO.

Nemu posted...

Using people as live drones doesnt seem particularly egregious to me.

What a sentence

Them tracking my data doesn't hurt my life in any way.

Don't really care, everyone is already tracking me. I enjoy the game. They should have disclosed it doe.

What do people think the pokestop scans was for? Just giving items away?

obsolete posted...

Them tracking my data doesn't hurt my life in any way.

Some people will remain asleep no matter how loud the alarm rings

Iirc South Korea banned Pokemon Go because of this reason.

Guess Ill stop playing something I enjoy then. Right after this event. Or maybe the next one. Or maybe the one after that. Or

Niantic's first game was pretty much that too, IIRC.

Why would anyone have expected otherwise lmao

Is it really a scam if it was obvious

Goldice posted...

What do people think the pokestop scans was for? Just giving items away?

Yeah this article is just forced outrage. It was very obvious that was the entire point of scanning stops.

Nemu posted...

Compared to shit like selling personal data, using people as live drones doesnt seem particularly egregious to me. No different than Captcha being used to train AI.

This is sort of how I feel about it, but at the same time I sort of doubt they are properly anonymizing things