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

popsci.com

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

#61

Post by mikae1 »

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.

> I don't think many players are doing it.

Do we have to think? Apparently they amassed 30B images. :)

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

#62

Post by pchew »

JakeStone wrote: post #58

Not unexpected, but it looks the oldest kid, Ingress, is being ignored again. IIRC, there was some badge you could earn by doing a number of those scans. Or is Ingress even still around?

They were(are?) the same backend, same world maps, same POIs. Maybe they diversified at some point but at launch the Gyms were 1 to 1 with Ingress portals in my city.

It is interesting that the 'non-gaming' division of the split kept Ingress.

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

#63

Post by rangestransform »

Aboutplants wrote: post #11

At what point will we have people transmit their car dash cams along with GPS information in order to generate more data? I’m actually surprised this hasn’t happened yet with self driving car manufacturers needing more and more data

Mobileye builds their maps like this

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

#65

Post by mapkkk »

charcircuit wrote: post #53
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…

You don't need to work and if you do you get rewarded in the game. Money is not the only motivating factor for people. Even something like keeping Google Map up to date can bring value to people from helping others. Helping others is not zero sum. Just because a company benefits from helping others that doesn't mean it's bad.

You're right in that money is not the only motivator for people. I would also argue that if you told them the _real_ reason, aka your own actual motivation behind the offer, the number of people who would actually be "playing" would be much lower.

I would be motivated to collect free data if it meant I was helping save lives, with that help not being behind a paywall.

I would be motivated to play a free game with ads just for the fun of it.

I would not be motivated to play a free game just for the fun of it if my playing of the game was furthering some faceless corporation's profit motives.

In fact, in that last scenario, I would feel tricked, and it would take a non-trivial amount of money for me to not feel that way.

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

#66

Post by pohl »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #44
organsnyder wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My son showed me how he does these quests: he points the phone at the floor and just wiggles it back and forth.

exactly. that is why i doubt they will get actual navigable information out of it.

To maintain that take, wouldn't you need to offer a plausible way that Niantic managed to train their Visual Positioning System using that data if the data was all bad?

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

#68

Post by tim333 »

Brosper wrote: post #33

I think that only the author of this post didn't know that. Everybody know that Niantic is a big data company.

I didn't know, although I play Pokemon Go and the Wikipedia page for them doesn't say big data although it mentions "...been developing for years: the Niantic Real World Platform." as mentioned in the article although it sounds a bit of a work in progress. They make a lot of money as a games company.

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

#70

Post by rigrassm »

JakeStone wrote: post #58

Not unexpected, but it looks the oldest kid, Ingress, is being ignored again. IIRC, there was some badge you could earn by doing a number of those scans. Or is Ingress even still around?

The OG was alive and kicking when I hopped back on a year and a half ago. No where near what it used to have as far as active players go but in my big city area there are still lots of active OGs and new people hopping on.
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