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Overture Maps Foundation releases open map dataset

overturemaps.org

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Re: Overture Maps Foundation releases open map dataset

#71
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another bit of context: OSM mappers were quite discontent with edits of many of Overture members. Be it low-paid contractors or bulk importing stuff that AI derived from satellite imagery.

> bulk importing stuff that AI derived from satellite imagery. That's a thing? This must explain why Google Maps turned into shit over the last few years. Google seems obsessed with replacing humans with half-assed automation.

I don't understand why big corporations find it so hard to see that the real potential in AI is usually in augmenting, not _replacing_, human labor

Imagine how useful tools like that can be if they just had a human review process. That added step in the process not only improves the quality of the final data but provides important feedback to improve the tool itself

Re: Overture Maps Foundation releases open map dataset

#72

For context, Overture Maps is a project that intends to enable large players in the geospatial space (TomTom, Amazon, Microsoft, but notably _not_ Google) to leverage open data sets (OpenStreetMap among them) alongside proprietary data and processes that they own. The consortium intends to enable a framework for enhancing geospatial data based in open data sets (e.g. OSM) with their own proprietary processes, and re-…

Another bit of context: OSM mappers were quite discontent with edits of many of Overture members. Be it low-paid contractors or bulk importing stuff that AI derived from satellite imagery.

Do you know when these contributions began? Has the scene changed much since then?

Re: Overture Maps Foundation releases open map dataset

#73
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, indeed. Google AI mapped skylights (roof windows) on a shopping mall near me as buildings.

In my city they made several buildings that overlap a river, and several more that overlap each other. It's been like that for at least 3 years.

Sounds like a fun city!

Re: Overture Maps Foundation releases open map dataset

#74
post #71
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> bulk importing stuff that AI derived from satellite imagery. That's a thing? This must explain why Google Maps turned into shit over the last few years. Google seems obsessed with replacing humans with half-assed automation.

I don't understand why big corporations find it so hard to see that the real potential in AI is usually in augmenting, not _replacing_, human labor Imagine how useful tools like that can be if they just had a human review process. That added step in the process not only improves the quality of the final data but provides important feedback to improve the tool itself

> I don't understand why big corporations find it so hard to see that the real potential in AI is usually in augmenting, not _replacing_, human labor

IMHO because now I have twice as much work: knowing the problem domain and reviewing someone else's contribution. It's like code review 24/7 from untrusted contributors: it requires more focus than just trying to understand and author the original contribution

Re: Overture Maps Foundation releases open map dataset

#76
post #53
post #46

I like that they provide this data, however when you try to actually retrieve it, It looks like they went out of their way to make it as convoluted as possible to try to retrieve any of the actual data.... so you have to use DuckDB and then do the import using that? why not just support mysql dump files? why require someone to have DuckDB? is DuckDB that popular? also the links they provide don't work so it doesn't l…

yeah, I thought about mentioning that it's kind of rude to lock that data behind AWS or Azure accounts, but realistically no one can be surprised that Big Cloud Providers want people to use more big cloud services There's nothing stopping either AWS or Azure from granting `s3:Get ` and `s3:List ` on those buckets to enable unauthenticated reads, if they were thus interested

I think they did?

aws --no-sign-request s3 ls s3://overturemaps-us-west-2/release/2023-07-26-alpha.0/

works fine for me.

Re: Overture Maps Foundation releases open map dataset

#77
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, exactly. Overture is, for better or worse, looking to create a dataset that is more difficult to mess with / contribute to. I'm big on OpenStreetMap, but I can't deny its a bit of a liability for Facebook and other companies that display maps to their users. There is the occasional vandalism edit that simply can't be shown to an end-user. Facebook put significant effort into maintaining a moderated version of th…

> There is the occasional vandalism edit that simply can't be shown to an end-user. I remember the same sort of arguments being made about how web sites could not possibly ever accept user comments or submissions, or could not ever risk having users sending links to one another. Those all proved to be false.

Did they? I've seen a lot of e.g. newspaper sites removing comment sections, or switching them to not display comments until they've been moderated.

Re: Overture Maps Foundation releases open map dataset

#78
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah, I thought about mentioning that it's kind of rude to lock that data behind AWS or Azure accounts, but realistically no one can be surprised that Big Cloud Providers want people to use more big cloud services There's nothing stopping either AWS or Azure from granting `s3:Get ` and `s3:List ` on those buckets to enable unauthenticated reads, if they were thus interested

I think they did? aws --no-sign-request s3 ls s3://overturemaps-us-west-2/release/2023-07-26-alpha.0/ works fine for me.

Ah, my mistake for not trying it; I saw the s3:// and assumed incorrectly. Thanks so much for trying that and reporting back!

Re: Overture Maps Foundation releases open map dataset

#79
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is the occasional vandalism edit that simply can't be shown to an end-user. I remember the same sort of arguments being made about how web sites could not possibly ever accept user comments or submissions, or could not ever risk having users sending links to one another. Those all proved to be false.

Editing OpenStreetMap isn't quite equivalent to commenting on a post. OSM allows you to edit anything, which is fantastic but also allows for more serious vandalism. We have seen major cities renamed to racial slurs, for example. As with Wikipedia, the community is generally very good about correcting these issues quickly. It's an uncommon problem that a lot of people work to mitigate. But I stand by what I said: van…

I used to work in the industry. A few things I’ve seen make it into production maps shown to largeNumberOfUsers are phallic objects drawn as lines on the map and series of what appear to be random test lines drawn as roads in the Arctic. Neither of these examples are great publicity if they are discovered on a finished and shipped product people are paying for.

Interestingly, they’re also a lot harder to catch than the slur naming example

Re: Overture Maps Foundation releases open map dataset

#80
post #74
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why big corporations find it so hard to see that the real potential in AI is usually in augmenting, not _replacing_, human labor Imagine how useful tools like that can be if they just had a human review process. That added step in the process not only improves the quality of the final data but provides important feedback to improve the tool itself

> I don't understand why big corporations find it so hard to see that the real potential in AI is usually in augmenting, not _replacing_, human labor IMHO because now I have twice as much work: knowing the problem domain and reviewing someone else's contribution. It's like code review 24/7 from untrusted contributors: it requires more focus than just trying to understand and author the original contribution

Not entirely like that; it's mostly fixing small edge cases when the bulk of the work has been done correctly. Think about e.g. automatic background removal from photos: most of the time you only need to introduce small corrections, instead of painstakingly tracing shapes by hand. But without these corrections the results are often slightly but visibly incorrect.
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