Live data from Hacker News

Pokémon Go Scans Trained the Navigation Tech for Military Drones

dronexl.co

171–180 of 334 posts

Re: Pokémon Go Scans Trained the Navigation Tech for Military Drones

#171

As someone who works in this space, the headline is a bit of a stretch. The overlap in the locations of Pokemon Go Player data and any active Drone heavy theaters of war is a tiny sliver (or zero?). The military contractor (Vantar/Maxar) in question basically admits so but just "reserves the right" to use the data which is the political battle line ala Claude and DoD. This is mostly an ideological battle.

> The overlap in the locations of Pokemon Go Player data and any active Drone heavy theaters of war is a tiny sliver. Currently active theaters. And now there are detailed locations of our cities. We might not get killbots today but we will get pacificationbots.

I remember reading in the news that Pokémon Go was quite popular in Palestine.

If GP has access to this dataset it would be interesting to know how sparse is the data in that area.

Re: Pokémon Go Scans Trained the Navigation Tech for Military Drones

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The data isn't guns though. Guns aren't a dual use technology that have a nonviolent purpose. Data is. The same data that trains military drones can also be used to train the robot that will bring food to grandma when she's so old that she can't walk up the stairs anymore.

Shooting guns for target practice is fun and non violent. Guns feed families and protect people too. They are dual use like all tech from knives to nukes.

I bet the targets don't feel like they're non-violent. The animal that was killed for food doesn't think anything, because it's dead. That's pretty violent. Shooting someone that attacking you in defense was necessary, but it's definitely violent.

All uses of guns are violent. That's what they do. They make holes in things that didn't have holes in them before. There are uses for them that are justified but they're always violent. This isn't an anti-gun screed, this is a words-mean-things rant. Violence is necessary and justified in various situations, which means guns are necessary and justified in various situations, but if you're going to say they're not violent, I can't agree.

Re: Pokémon Go Scans Trained the Navigation Tech for Military Drones

#173
post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like there's a moral high ground about not collaborating with the military. Unless you want to advantage America's adversaries, namely China, Putin's Russia and Iran's current regime. There's always this implicit, sometimes explicit, "war bad" childish political philosophy in posts like this. In reality war is a given and you have to be prepared to have the upper hand.

War is bad. And our reality isn’t some unchanging truth. Our actions and choices, or apathy, help shape our reality. It is not childish to aspire to be better.

You can explain that to the Ukrainians and tell them how they shouldn't have American technical superiority like Starlink and the American AI and data in their drones to survive another day.

Re: Pokémon Go Scans Trained the Navigation Tech for Military Drones

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The overlap in the locations of Pokemon Go Player data and any active Drone heavy theaters of war is a tiny sliver (or zero?). But presumably the images/models at ground level can be used to train/improve the general performance of Vantor's aerial (satelite based) navigation system so it works better elsewhere?

well the article writes AS IF the whole intention was to: "get data for drone warfare" ...in 2021 (before the russian invasion...) but did we even EXPECT drone warfare to influence the war THIS MUCH back then? well not me -- I actually thought russia would beat the crap out of ukraine within a month (even after the failed spetsnaz attack on zelensky) the article's assumptions only makes sense IF some people had time…

Drone warfare has been discussed publicly since more than a decade, what Ukraine proved was just how effective that really is, but it was already known and understood. In any case mapping the world doesn’t only benefit drones, it’s something always valuable to the military. Drone navigation is just one use case

Re: Pokémon Go Scans Trained the Navigation Tech for Military Drones

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The overlap in the locations of Pokemon Go Player data and any active Drone heavy theaters of war is a tiny sliver (or zero?). But presumably the images/models at ground level can be used to train/improve the general performance of Vantor's aerial (satelite based) navigation system so it works better elsewhere?

No the tech doesn’t work like that AFAIK. The most common use case is exactly localization (think “HD maps” for autonomous cars). It almost 1-1 data correlation, n-phone Pokémon go scans of a location helping a drone locate itself in the same location in correlation with Maxar’s satellite data. There maybe some hyper corner case uses. Maybe the billion scans in New York City help them generalize across different phon…

You are creating a 3D model when you scan using Pokémon Go. Difference in lenses doesn't matter, that only matters for the scanning step.

Re: Pokémon Go Scans Trained the Navigation Tech for Military Drones

#177

Where are all the edgelords sending me cuckoo signs and tagging me as conspiracy theorist when I said that it compiles photogrammetry by placing pokemons at areas and angles with low image coverage? Ah, oh yes, "we all knew it from the start", "they indicated that up front" etc. Fuck no, everyone was foaming at the mouth how it's just a game and no way in hell an intelligence operation. P.S. Those who "knew it from t…

From Room 641A to Snowden, the speed with which the narrative shifts from "that's conspiracy nonsense" to "we knew it all along" is neck-snapping.

Every. Single. Time.

Re: Pokémon Go Scans Trained the Navigation Tech for Military Drones

#179
post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like there's a moral high ground about not collaborating with the military. Unless you want to advantage America's adversaries, namely China, Putin's Russia and Iran's current regime. There's always this implicit, sometimes explicit, "war bad" childish political philosophy in posts like this. In reality war is a given and you have to be prepared to have the upper hand.

the EU has demonstrated for decades that by balancing trades, equality and human rights it can prevent conflicts from happening. Seems to me that most of our friends in the balkans that have memory of the past wars are overall pretty happy about the current state of things, and there hasn't been wars to contend Alsace-Lorraine in 80 years, is it a record already? War is very much not a given in the civilized world

That's why they have a full blown war in their borders and they're powerless without American hardware and intelligence. Also they're right now scrambling to allocate huge investments in weaponry, of course late, but better than never.

Re: Pokémon Go Scans Trained the Navigation Tech for Military Drones

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shooting guns for target practice is fun and non violent. Guns feed families and protect people too. They are dual use like all tech from knives to nukes.

I bet the targets don't feel like they're non-violent. The animal that was killed for food doesn't think anything, because it's dead. That's pretty violent. Shooting someone that attacking you in defense was necessary, but it's definitely violent. All uses of guns are violent. That's what they do. They make holes in things that didn't have holes in them before. There are uses for them that are justified but they're a…

Your words are violence.

Targets are inanimate objects I’m fine with being violent against them just like I’m fine with farting on my chair!

Even if all uses of weapons are violence, sometimes violence is justified. If you disagree happy to violently rob you and disabuse you of your stupid ideas.

Opinions of people who lived sheltered lives are so divorced from reality

Post reply on HN