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Niantic plans a “Large Geospatial Model” trained on Pokémon Go player data

nianticlabs.com

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Re: Niantic plans a “Large Geospatial Model” trained on Pokémon Go player data

#161

Post by dogcomplex »

relyks wrote: post #20

This is pretty cool, but I feel as a pokehunter (Pokemon Go player), I have been tricked into working to contribute training data so that they can profit off my labor. How? They consistently incentivize you to scan pokestops (physical locations) through "research tasks" and give you some useful items as rewards. The effort is usually much more significant than what you get in return, so I have stopped doing it. It's…

Did anyone here on hackernews not seriously assume this was the real reason for the existence of that game since day 1?

Re: Niantic plans a “Large Geospatial Model” trained on Pokémon Go player data

#162

Post by JohnMakin »

PittleyDunkin wrote: post #138
saxonww wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sarcastically, no one should. Unsarcastically, a lot of people believe user data belongs to users, and that they should have a say in how it's used. Here, I think the point is that Niantic decided they could use the data this way and weren't transparent about it until it was already done. I'm sure I would be in the minority, but I would never have played - or never have done certain things like the research tasks - h…

> Unsarcastically, a lot of people believe user data belongs to users, and that they should have a say in how it's used I can understand that people believe this, but why do they do? Nothing in our society operates in a way that might imply this.

You find it strange that people want something different than the wild west status quo (which is not the status quo everywhere, btw) that they may not even fully understand or be informed enough to understand how it works or what the consequences are? like you actually expect even a savvy user of this game to be like ‘oh, of course they would be using my labor to profit for this technology i dont understand, duh?’ what a strange statement and world view.

Re: Niantic plans a “Large Geospatial Model” trained on Pokémon Go player data

#163

Post by PittleyDunkin »

JohnMakin wrote: post #162
PittleyDunkin wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unsarcastically, a lot of people believe user data belongs to users, and that they should have a say in how it's used I can understand that people believe this, but why do they do? Nothing in our society operates in a way that might imply this.

You find it strange that people want something different than the wild west status quo (which is not the status quo everywhere, btw) that they may not even fully understand or be informed enough to understand how it works or what the consequences are? like you actually expect even a savvy user of this game to be like ‘oh, of course they would be using my labor to profit for this technology i dont understand, duh?’ wh…

I want this, too. Desire is a very different concept than expectation.

Re: Niantic plans a “Large Geospatial Model” trained on Pokémon Go player data

#164

Post by JohnMakin »

HPsquared wrote: post #151
melagonster wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they trust Pokemon as a IP? Usually Nintendo keeps your data safe.

Is this model not a safe use of the data?

It’s on niantic to prove that it is, not for the millions of unspecting users to prove it isn’t.

Re: Niantic plans a “Large Geospatial Model” trained on Pokémon Go player data

#165

Post by drusepth »

krick wrote: post #143

I still don't get what LGM is. From what I understood, it isn't actually about any "geospatial" data at all, is it? It is rather about improving some vision models to predict how the backside of a building looks, right? And training data isn't of people walking, but from images they've produced while catching pokemons or something? P.S.: Also, if that's indeed what they mean, I wonder why having google street view da…

> It is rather about improving some vision models to predict how the backside of a building looks, right?

This, yes, based on how the backsides of similar buildings have looked in other learned areas.

But the other missing piece of what it is seems to be relativity and scale: I do 3D model generation at our game studio right now and the biggest want/need current models can't do is scale (and, specifically, relative scale) -- we can generate 3d models for entities in our game but we still need a person in the loop to scale them to a correct size relative to other models: trees are bigger than humans, and buildings are bigger still. Current generative 3d models just create a scale-less model for output; it looks like a "geospatial" model incorporates some form of relative scale, and would (could?) incorporate that into generated models (or, more likely, maps of models rather than individual models themselves).

Re: Niantic plans a “Large Geospatial Model” trained on Pokémon Go player data

#166

Post by JohnMakin »

phendrenad2 wrote: post #90
relyks wrote: post #20

This is pretty cool, but I feel as a pokehunter (Pokemon Go player), I have been tricked into working to contribute training data so that they can profit off my labor. How? They consistently incentivize you to scan pokestops (physical locations) through "research tasks" and give you some useful items as rewards. The effort is usually much more significant than what you get in return, so I have stopped doing it. It's…

Were you really tricked? Hard to believe that someone on Hacker News saw Pokemon Go and didn't immediately think of the data collection possibilities.

It may surprise you to learn pokemon go is nearly a 10 year old game based on 40 year old beloved IP that when it was released did not exist in the same data hellscape we do today, and even if it did, the attraction of the IP would overrule people thinking about this kind of thing. These kinds of comments are extraordinarily disingenuous sounding, particularly when anyone can spend 3 seconds and figure out their primary market is literal children.

Re: Niantic plans a “Large Geospatial Model” trained on Pokémon Go player data

#167

Post by fragmede »

aqfamnzc wrote: post #81
RussianCow wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All of which I've directly contributed to and never (directly) recieved anything in return To be fair, you received a service for free that you may have otherwise had to pay for. I'm not saying it's just, but to say you didn't get anything in return is disingenuous.

Agreed. I mostly meant that I'll never see the actual dataset that I contributed to. That's why I'd prefer to spend my time on things that I can see, like OpenStreetMap :)

Not the raw data, but if you've used Google maps for directions or looked at traffic, then yeah you have.

Re: Niantic plans a “Large Geospatial Model” trained on Pokémon Go player data

#168

Post by JohnMakin »

denismi wrote: post #55
relyks wrote: post #20

This is pretty cool, but I feel as a pokehunter (Pokemon Go player), I have been tricked into working to contribute training data so that they can profit off my labor. How? They consistently incentivize you to scan pokestops (physical locations) through "research tasks" and give you some useful items as rewards. The effort is usually much more significant than what you get in return, so I have stopped doing it. It's…

Do you honestly feel tricked that a gameplay mechanic which transparently asks you to record 50-100MB videos of a point-of-interest and upload it to their servers in exchange for an (often paid/premium) in-game reward was a form of data collection? I don't think I've done any in PoGo (so I know it's very optional), but I've done plenty in Ingress, and I honestly don't see how it's possible to be surprised that it was…

Oh yes, children, their primary market, definitely consider this. Definitely.

Re: Niantic plans a “Large Geospatial Model” trained on Pokémon Go player data

#169

Post by RobRivera »

fragmede wrote: post #25
relyks wrote: post #20

This is pretty cool, but I feel as a pokehunter (Pokemon Go player), I have been tricked into working to contribute training data so that they can profit off my labor. How? They consistently incentivize you to scan pokestops (physical locations) through "research tasks" and give you some useful items as rewards. The effort is usually much more significant than what you get in return, so I have stopped doing it. It's…

You've also been tricked into making your comment, which will undoubtedly be fed into an LLM's training corpus, and someone will be profiting off that, along with my comment as well. What a future we live in!

Baba booy bbaba booy Batman bats badly barring the baristers bearing.

Magic schoolbus!

Yea, take that llm model maker

Re: Niantic plans a “Large Geospatial Model” trained on Pokémon Go player data

#170

Post by drusepth »

maxerickson wrote: post #79
whatevermang wrote: post #77

People complaining here that you are somehow owed something for contributing to the data set, or that because you use google maps or reCAPTCHA you are owed access to their training data. I mean, I'd like that data too. But you did get something in return already. A game that you enjoy (or your wouldn't play it), free and efficient navigation (better than your TomTom ever worked), sites not overwhelmed by bots or spam…

I'm not sure quite what the ownership is, but Niantic isn't a subsidiary of Alphabet or Google.

The company was formed as Niantic Labs in 2010 as an internal startup within Google, founded by the then-head of Google's Geo Division (Google Maps, Google Earth, and Google Street View).

It became an independent entity in October 2015 when Google restructured under Alphabet Inc. During the spinout, Niantic announced that Google, Nintendo, and The Pokémon Company would invest up to $30 million in Series-A funding. Not sure what the current ownership is (they've raised a few more times since then), but they're seemingly still very closely tied with Google.

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