Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

'Pokémon Go' players unknowingly trained delivery robots with 30B images

popsci.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–108 of 108 posts

Re: 'Pokémon Go' players unknowingly trained delivery robots with 30B images

#101

Post by abroszka33 »

jurgenburgen wrote: post #98
momoschili wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30B images isn't that much in the context of Pokemon Go playerbase of ~50 million (conservative estimate based on users today). That's about 600 images per person, in a game that has been out since 2016... that's pretty low adoption as the previous user said. I don't think the quest has been out since 2016, but considering a large fraction of users are basically daily users, it's still quite a small number of images.

600 images per person is a huge amount, especially considering some amount of people are like the GP and don’t do it. The active picture takers would be taking _more_ than 600 images.

But this is images. I submitted it one time and I'm pretty sure that was hundreds of images. You basically walk around the POI and it takes a LOT of images of the POI. 600 scans / player would be insane.

Re: 'Pokémon Go' players unknowingly trained delivery robots with 30B images

#102

Post by abroszka33 »

DennisP wrote: post #100
abroszka33 wrote: post #7

I like Pokemon Go and play almost every day. I did this scan one time and then stopped. The rewards are not worth the hassle. I don't think many players are doing it. It's just very weird to stand somewhere and scan an object. I also wouldn't say 'unknowingly trained', it's pretty obvious what it does, and I think the game even tells you that they want to understands how the POI looks like in 3D.

> obvious what it does, and I think the game even tells you that they want to understands how the POI looks like in 3D. But most people probably assumed the purpose was to improve the game, not to train delivery robots. Or whatever else they end up doing with the data. If, as the article suggests, this ends up adding to the surveillance state by making geolocation of photos more accurate, then I really don't think th…

I'm pretty sure that by now almost everybody know that anything you put online is monetised. I'm also 100% sure they sell my location data as well. I just don't care. Not my responsibility to stop it.

Re: 'Pokémon Go' players unknowingly trained delivery robots with 30B images

#104

Post by momoschili »

jurgenburgen wrote: post #98
momoschili wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30B images isn't that much in the context of Pokemon Go playerbase of ~50 million (conservative estimate based on users today). That's about 600 images per person, in a game that has been out since 2016... that's pretty low adoption as the previous user said. I don't think the quest has been out since 2016, but considering a large fraction of users are basically daily users, it's still quite a small number of images.

600 images per person is a huge amount, especially considering some amount of people are like the GP and don’t do it. The active picture takers would be taking _more_ than 600 images.

30B images over the course of 6 years by a few million players. In a game that runs daily quests like this and weekly quests can easily be accounted for by a small fraction of users. I don't know how much you played Pokemon Go, but when the AR scanning tasks were introduced, most players didn't really want to do them, which resulted in the tasks be segregated from Field Research (since they were taking up a valuable spot)

This was GP's original point - it doesn't take the majority of people playing Pokemon Go to do it in order for them to get 30B images, especially since each scan was like multiple images - you look like a dork doing the scan

Re: 'Pokémon Go' players unknowingly trained delivery robots with 30B images

#106

Post by DANmode »

jsbisviewtiful wrote: post #49
ragebol wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone in a very specific bubble

Even without looking it up to know for sure it was pretty obvious and could be inferred by anyone playing the game. Especially the scanning, which was painfully obvious to be a data collection method.

> it was pretty obvious and could be inferred by anyone playing the game.

Never work with the general public.

Your perception of normie understanding of tech is wildly broken.

Re: 'Pokémon Go' players unknowingly trained delivery robots with 30B images

#107

Post by Frieren »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #96
Frieren wrote: post #27

Big corporations have found the way to make us work for free in their own terms. The balance of power between the working class and capital is totally broken. And for me it is not just the lack of transparency. It is the power balance. I should not need to work for free, give my data, and god knows what to play a game. I should not be living knowing that I am being exploited at each interaction with software. Transpa…

> Big corporations have found the way to make us work for free in their own terms. The balance of power between the working class and capital is totally broken. > And for me it is not just the lack of transparency. It is the power balance. I should not need to work for free, give my data, and god knows what to play a game. If you have such a (legitimate) stance, why don't you delete Pokémon Go (and Ingress) as fast a…

> If you have such a (legitimate) stance, why don't you delete Pokémon Go (and Ingress) as fast as possible from your mobile phone and encourage other people to do the same?

I'm encouraging people to regulate big corporations. Fighting individually against corporations larger than countries makes no logical sense. What you are asking me is to follow a losing strategy.

> It was obvious from begin that the whole purpose of the game was that naive players are to take pictures of objects that are of interest to Niantic for free.

Even if a scam is obvious, it is still a scam and needs to be stop by the rule of law.

Re: 'Pokémon Go' players unknowingly trained delivery robots with 30B images

#108

Post by RC_ITR »

DANmode wrote: post #105
RC_ITR wrote: post #23

I'm not positive this was a secret (See: Reddit post about it from 2018): https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSilphRoad/comments/8i7byi/pokemo...

I’m sure all the Pokémon Go players caught that post!

Well, then we get into the area of 'How many people know Google is logging their searches to serve them more targeted YouTube ads?'
Post reply on HN