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

(nianticlabs.com)
383 points bookstore-romeo | 9 comments | 19 Nov 24 20:02 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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relyks ◴[20 Nov 24 22:26 UTC] No.42198768[source]▶
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 not very convenient to take a video around the object or location in question. If they release the model and weights, though, I will feel I contributed to the greater good.
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rbrown ◴[20 Nov 24 22:27 UTC] No.42198776[source]▶
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...

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relyks ◴[20 Nov 24 22:37 UTC] No.42198866[source]▶
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
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ysofunny ◴[20 Nov 24 23:10 UTC] No.42199105[source]▶
> 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

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1. aqfamnzc ◴[20 Nov 24 23:26 UTC] No.42199224[source]▶
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

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2. RussianCow ◴[20 Nov 24 23:56 UTC] No.42199471[source]▶
> 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.

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3. aqfamnzc ◴[21 Nov 24 00:12 UTC] No.42199601[source]▶
Agreed. I mostly meant that I'll never see the actual dataset that I contributed to. That's why I'd prefer to spend my time on things that I can see, like OpenStreetMap :)
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4. chipsrafferty ◴[21 Nov 24 00:38 UTC] No.42199787[source]▶
The some is true of this case, the game is free.
5. PittleyDunkin ◴[21 Nov 24 01:33 UTC] No.42200134[source]▶
While you weren't paying for it with currency, the service is most certainly not "free". There's still a transaction happening when you use the service, albeit a transaction the service provider refuses to acknowledge outside the terms of service.
6. orblivion ◴[21 Nov 24 01:47 UTC] No.42200221{3}[source]▶
The people playing Pokemon Go will also see your OpenStreetMap contributions.
7. FireBeyond ◴[21 Nov 24 02:02 UTC] No.42200325[source]▶
> any iPhone navigating with gmaps

Not saying you are saying this but it amused me how many people believe(d) that Apple wasn’t mining and hoarding location data either because well, they’re Apple and they love you. All those traffic statuses in Apple Maps on minor side streets with no monitoring came from the … traffic fairy, perhaps.

8. fragmede ◴[21 Nov 24 02:50 UTC] No.42200609{3}[source]▶
Not the raw data, but if you've used Google maps for directions or looked at traffic, then yeah you have.
9. eru ◴[21 Nov 24 03:27 UTC] No.42200810[source]▶
Well, no one is forcing you to play Poke Mongo.