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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

#211

Post by ryanschaefer »

ipaddr wrote: post #206
ryanschaefer wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d be interested in how your privacy policy allows this. I can’t find where it mentions photos are stored or used for training purposes…

I would be more interested on why you believe something like this isn't baked into most privacy policies. I'm not shocked but I'm shocked you are shocked.

I’m not exactly shocked that it could exist. But this usage (beyond the scope of processing barcodes) seems like it couldn’t be construed to fit into the normal avenues of data collection under a privacy policy. Also with regard to training specifically, this policy was created in late 2020 so I don’t know how it would cover generative models.

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

#212

Post by interroboink »

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.

> Nothing in our society operates in a way that might imply this.

I beg your pardon?

Consider just about any physical belonging — say, a book. When I buy a book, it belongs to me. When I read a book in my home, I expect it to be a private experience (nobody data-mining my eyeball movements, for example).

This applies to all sorts of things. Even electronic things — if I put some files on a USB stick I expect them to be "mine" and used as I please, not uploaded to the cloud behind my back, or similar.

And if we're just limiting ourselves to what we do in public (eg: collecting pokemon or whatever), it's still normal, I think, to interact relatively anonymously with the world. You don't expect people to remember you after meeting them once, for example.

In summary, I'd say that "things in our society" very much include people (and their tendency to forget or not care about you), and physical non-smart objects. Smart phones and devices that do track your every move and do remember everything are the exception, not the rule.

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

#213

Post by dangoodmanUT »

_qxb9 wrote: post #193

We do this at [name redacted as this was a joke]. When users scan their barcode, the preview window is zoomed in so users think its mostly barcode. We actually get quite a bit more background noise typically of a fridge, supermarket aisle, pantry etc. but it is sent across to us, stored, and trained on. Within the next year we will have a pretty good idea of the average pantry, fridge, supermarket aisle. Who knows wh…

brother definitely just violated an NDA

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

#214

Post by [deleted] »

_qxb9 wrote: post #193

We do this at [name redacted as this was a joke]. When users scan their barcode, the preview window is zoomed in so users think its mostly barcode. We actually get quite a bit more background noise typically of a fridge, supermarket aisle, pantry etc. but it is sent across to us, stored, and trained on. Within the next year we will have a pretty good idea of the average pantry, fridge, supermarket aisle. Who knows wh…

[deleted]

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

#215

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

thephyber wrote: post #123
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…

All companies should be truthful, forthcoming, and specific about how they will use your data, but… If you enjoy the game, play the game. Don’t boycott/withhold because they figured out an additional use for data that didn’t previously exist. Another way of viewing this: GoogleMaps is incredibly high quality mapping software with lots of extra features. It is mostly free (for the end user). If no one uses it, Google…

> If you enjoy the game, play the game

I wish it were that simple but I think it's reasonable to hesitate. We don't know what these models are going to be used for. If by playing you're unwittingly letting something powerful fall into the wrong hands, maybe play something else.

(Generally speaking. I'm not trying to throw stones at Niantic specifically here.)

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

#216

Post by PittleyDunkin »

CaptainFever wrote: post #7

This title is editorialized. The real title is: "Building a Large Geospatial Model to Achieve Spatial Intelligence" > Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize. My personal layman's opinion: I'm mostly surprised that they were able to do this. When I played Pokémon GO a few years back, the AR was so slow that I rarely used it. Apparently it's so popular and commo…

> the rest of the world gets a cool new technology

The rest of the world gets an opportunity to purchase access to said new technology, you mean! It's not like they're releasing how they generated the models. It's much more difficult to get excited about paid-access to technology than it is about access to tech itself.

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

#217

Post by [deleted] »

ryanschaefer wrote: post #211
ipaddr wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be more interested on why you believe something like this isn't baked into most privacy policies. I'm not shocked but I'm shocked you are shocked.

I’m not exactly shocked that it could exist. But this usage (beyond the scope of processing barcodes) seems like it couldn’t be construed to fit into the normal avenues of data collection under a privacy policy. Also with regard to training specifically, this policy was created in late 2020 so I don’t know how it would cover generative models.

[deleted]

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

#218

Post by isodev »

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…

> I feel … I have been tricked

Everything “free” coming from a company means they’ve found a way to monetise you in some way. The big long ToS we all casually accept without reading says so too.

Other random examples which appear free but aren’t: using a search engine, using the browser that comes with your phone, instagram, YouTube… etc.

It’s not always about data collection, sometimes it’s platform lock-in, or something else but there is always a side of it that makes sense for their profit margin.

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

#219

Post by 8note »

thfuran wrote: post #179
JohnMakin wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Wanting something to be a certain way is very different from believing that it is. And yes, I would expect any moderately informed and technically savvy user to assume that the company is doing anything they possibly can to profit off of user data.

But you don't expect people to also try to profit off whatever said company is doing?

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

#220

Post by moreofthis »

ipaddr wrote: post #206
ryanschaefer wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d be interested in how your privacy policy allows this. I can’t find where it mentions photos are stored or used for training purposes…

I would be more interested on why you believe something like this isn't baked into most privacy policies. I'm not shocked but I'm shocked you are shocked.

Giving their policy an (admittedly quick) skim there doesn't seem to be any section that mentions AI, LLMs, training any kind of model, using image data from barcode pictures, etc. I'd be very curious to see the explanation of how this is baked into the policy.
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