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

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

nianticlabs.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 365 posts

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

#71

Post by dev1ycan »

ggm wrote: post #65

Not wanting to over-do it, but is there possibly an argument the data about geospatial should be in the commons and google have some obligation to put the data back into the commons? I'm not arguing to a legal basis but if it's crowdsourced, then the inputs came from ordinary people. Sure, they signed to T&Cs. Philosophically, I think knowledge, facts of the world as it is, even the constructed world, should be publi…

Do you expect every company to release all their data to the public as well or it's just because you're not invested in this one?

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

#72

Post by UltraSane »

oliyoung wrote: post #35

Impressive, but this is one of those "if this is public knowledge, how far ahead is the _not_ public knowledge" things

I really want to know what the NSA and NRO and Pentagon are doing training deep neural networks on hyperspectral imaging and synthetic aperture radar data. Imagine having something like Google Earth but with semantic segmentation of features combined with what material they are made from. All stored on petabytes of NVMe flash.

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

#73

Post by RussianCow »

aqfamnzc wrote: post #57
ysofunny wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google actually has released weights for some of their models, but judging by the fact that this model is potentially valuable, they likely will not allow Niantic for this which is totally unfair, every niantic player should have access to all the stuff because they collectively made it

Welcome to the modern internet. While you're at it, please get me access to Google's captcha models facebook face directory Google's GPS location data hoard, (most every android phone on the planet 24/7 (!) and any iPhone navigating with gmaps) And so on and so on All of which I've directly contributed to and never (directly) recieved anything in return

> 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.

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

#74

Post by fragmede »

jillyboel wrote: post #45
chottocharaii wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this perspective. Why should I resent the creation of value from behaviours that I would be doing anyway.

Because the goal is to replace you with a machine and to widen the poverty gap. Also because I do not consent to it. Are you also fine with taking pictures of pretty women on the street (hey, they'd be walking there anyway) and posting them online and farming ad revenue? Or training a model on their likeness for porn?

https://www.earthcam.com/cams/newyork/timessquare/?cam=tsrob...

is a webcam of Times Square, and they've got ads on the page, and they're making money off pictures of pretty men and women on that street. I don't know how okay or not I am with it, but it's the world we live in.

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

#75

Post by ggm »

dev1ycan wrote: post #71
ggm wrote: post #65

Not wanting to over-do it, but is there possibly an argument the data about geospatial should be in the commons and google have some obligation to put the data back into the commons? I'm not arguing to a legal basis but if it's crowdsourced, then the inputs came from ordinary people. Sure, they signed to T&Cs. Philosophically, I think knowledge, facts of the world as it is, even the constructed world, should be publi…

Do you expect every company to release all their data to the public as well or it's just because you're not invested in this one?

I expect any company which collates information about geospatial datasets to release the substance of them, yes. Maybe there's an IPR lockup window, but at some point the cadastral facts of the world are part of the commons to me.

I would think there's actually a lot of epidemiology data which also should be winding up in the public domain getting locked up in medical IPR. I could make the same case. Cochrane reports rely on being able to do meta analysis over existing datasets. Thats value.

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

#76

Post by astrange »

vasco wrote: post #64
tiahura wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Upload a picture of a bad guy in an office lobby to pokegpt and ask it where he is.

You can do that for free by sending the picture to a geoguessr streamer on twitch.

Or Google Lens. Regardless this isn't the CIA, it's the NGIA.

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

#77

Post by whatevermang »

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 spammers. Yeah google gets more out of it than you probably do, but it's incorrect to say that you are getting 'nothing' in return.

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

#78

Post by bitwize »

rbrown wrote: post #23
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…

They won't. It's the same data collection play as every other Google project Just for clarity on this comment and a separate one, Niantic is a Google spin out company and appears to still be majority shareholder: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niantic,_Inc.#As_an_independen...

I kept wondering why a Google spinoff was named after a river and community in Connecticut, one of the least Googley locales in the country.

The connection is a ship, built in Connecticut, which brought gold rushers to San Francisco and was run aground and converted to a hotel there: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niantic_(whaling_vessel)

The company was named after the ship.

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

#79

Post by maxerickson »

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.
Post reply on HN