Pokémon Go Scans Trained the Navigation Tech for Military Drones

relyks

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, but it's still kind of terrible that you could be indirectly contributing to war efforts. I always assumed the data would be used for large world model training or simulations.

alpineman

Truly dystopian. The Pokémon Company should share the blame for licensing their brand in this way without proper safeguards to prevent the data being used for this, particularly given the background of the Niantic founders

superkickstart

The world is so messed up right now that this is not even the least bit surprising. In fact it's on point.

Utilera

Once the data has trained a model, it also becomes almost impossible to meaningfully audit or undo

self_awareness

Insane. People literally traded military intelligence for Pokémon.

bronlund

Just wonderful.

ai_fry_ur_brain

Niantics founder has CIA roots... None of this is surprising. https://www.binance.com/en/square/post/302386307352562

Larrikin

I'm glad I always quickly scanned the dirt. At some point I gave up completely when I heard they started banning people for dirt scans. In the latest season they've gotten rid of the scan rewards, so I guess they got all the data they needed.

wartywhoa23

Where are all the edgelords sending me cuckoo signs and tagging me as conspiracy theorist when I said that it compiles photogrammetry by placing pokemons at areas and angles with low image coverage? Ah, oh yes, "we all knew it from the start", "they indicated that up front" etc. Fuck no, everyone was foaming at the mouth how it's just a game and no way in hell an intelligence operation. P.S. Those who "knew it from the start" yet continued helping Niantic, did you really think that the data will be used for the greater good of the humankind?

Ccecil

Hate to say I called this years ago.... It is a shameful use of tech.

keketi

surprised pikachu face

lmf4lol

And here I am, trying to make our product as privacy friendly as possible. Trying to follow GDPR and the AI act. Trying to respect my users.. And then there are those guys... and they make billions, by giving a flying f*ck about ethics or what so ever. And NO ONE will hold them accountable. NO ONE! Because either they lack the power, or they are bought and in it on the scheme. I accept that the world is like that. Just like International Law has always been nothing more than an academic exercise, business doesnt care about anyone besides profit. Its fine. Its just sad also...

vrganj

August 2016: Iran Becomes First Country to Ban Pokémon GO https://www.avclub.com/iran-becomes-first-country-to-ban-pok... Really smart decision, in hindsight.

mcosta

It is even worse, tax money is used for the military.

freakynit

Watch Dogs: Legion

petterroea

This shouldn't be a surprise. But at this point it feels like if you don't completely avoid participating in digital society, your data will be used against you or groups/countries you support.

emperorxanu

I still feel like this is a perfect example of why we should be asking for our data to be disclosed to the public. If I take a picture of some public point of interest, they end up tagging it with their metadata and selling it, well, that's what I agreed to by not reading 20 pages of T&C's right? But the value in that data is in the liveliness right, so at some point, would it not make sense for that data to be considered a public asset? Why do we not demand this data be released regularly (given that the inverse tech could be developed using this as well)? If it can be used to train things used for war, could it not equally be used to train better lifesaving tech (in which case, the data should be made available to the public)?

wartywhoa23

An interesting thing is that in Russia, this military data grab by ostensibly 'our western would-be enemies" was supported by viral advertisement by nobody else but the head of Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill. A story was manufactured about arresting a 22 y.o. guy in the Church on Blood in Honour of All Saints for playing Pokemon Go. The story went hyper-hyped for weeks, with general public sentiment that once such an obscurant retrograde declares such an innocent game so evil, it must be something to absolutely install and play in spite! And such was the way of the Pokemon Go's viral success in Russia. (edits for factual precision)

tomaytotomato

How useful is spatial data over time, does it decay or age much? Is the geographical data more useful, or are buildings and other structures more important? Genuinely don't know much in this space.

wiseowise

This is all for your security! Right? Right…?