Live data from Hacker News

Pokémon Go Scans Trained the Navigation Tech for Military Drones

dronexl.co

191–200 of 334 posts

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

#191

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.

Optimistically, it sounds like the USA data could be used to assist USA domestic defense drones, fighting against an invading foreign nation.

Pessimistically, maybe democracy's days are numbered

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

#192

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.

Even the Pokémon Go world model headlines were stretching the reality of what the model captured.

If you’ve played the game, the scanning function is only for what they call Pokestops: These are points of interest that you can walk to and get items in the game. The game gives you points if you walk in a circle around one and take a short video.

They’re relatively sparse. At most, they captured some 3D models of some things like signs, small landmarks (up close) and the fronts of some buildings.

The images captured by something like Google Maps are a million times more useful for someone trying to construct a world model with a lot of coverage. The Pokémon Go captures would be useful if you wanted something like a detailed 3D scan of the sign in front the student building or something.

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

#193
post #185

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.

Pretty sure Pokemon Go and Ingress was played in Kiev long before the war

This is a good point. Legacy data might be the most valueable here

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

#194
post #136

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.

They don't have equal weight. Even 100s of yummy grandma-cheeseburgers is not worth feeding private data brokers detailed maps of our own communities. Nowadays some of them are just as likely to sell the data to the other side. Nowadays the other side may get access to them without us even knowing.

Nowadays the other side may get access to them without us even knowing.

Yep... collecting domestic geo data is a double-edged sword.

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

#195

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.

> And now there are detailed locations of our cities.

The Pokémon Go data is for small little islands around their points of interest (pokestops).

It’s not a detailed city map. The data is extremely sparse and only covers little tiny bubble around their sparse in game POIs.

The way it was represented as some sort of high resolution city map or world model was quite ridiculous.

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

#196
post #185

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.

Pretty sure Pokemon Go and Ingress was played in Kiev long before the war

Good thing we’re not selling this data to the Russians?

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

#197

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.

story broke yesterday that Ukraine deployed its first fully AI system, no human interaction, and it scored its first kill

i think killbots are absolutely a possibility, and very soon.

rightwing pundits and meme makers are already unironically quoting Zechariah 13:8

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

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kill bots are used right now in Ukraine, including ones with no operator in the loop (too slow)

Details?

from 1 day ago:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2529849-fully-autonomou...

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

#199
post #2

I stopped scanning pokestops because the effort has outweighed the rewards. A lot of the time, the requests show up as "research tasks" for a point of interest that I quickly passed by and have no interest in returning to, besides the tasks related to taking pictures of your buddy pokemon in augmented reality. Looks like I made the right choice by stopping. They do indicate to you up front that they will use the data…

The closest stop to me is between a dog park and a school - scanning it would have been an awkward situation, to say the least. And as you said, for rewards that aren't worth it. I got used to having that "Scan" task just sitting at the top of my list, never to be touched. But I noticed earlier this week that it's gone - and scanning stops doesn't give a new scan task.

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

#200

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. Currently active theaters. And now there are detailed locations of our cities. We might not get killbots today but we will get pacificationbots.

Optimistically, it sounds like the USA data could be used to assist USA domestic defense drones, fighting against an invading foreign nation. Pessimistically, maybe democracy's days are numbered

> Pessimistically, maybe democracy's days are numbered

that was in the cards in the early 2000s when the Patriot Act got passed, mate.

now they just have the muscle (drones) to back it up.

welcome to the cyberpunk dystopia

Post reply on HN