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

(nianticlabs.com)
383 points bookstore-romeo | 3 comments | 19 Nov 24 20:02 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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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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PittleyDunkin ◴[21 Nov 24 01:29 UTC] No.42200093[source]▶
> I have been tricked into working to contribute training data so that they can profit off my labor

You were playing a game without paying for it. How did you imagine they were making money without pimping your data?

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ipsum2 ◴[21 Nov 24 01:41 UTC] No.42200179[source]▶
Niantic made 700 million dollars last year, mostly selling virtual game items.
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PittleyDunkin ◴[21 Nov 24 01:44 UTC] No.42200200{3}[source]▶
Why would anyone think niantic would protect user-data from profit?
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stevage ◴[21 Nov 24 01:59 UTC] No.42200297{4}[source]▶
Because not everyone is a seasoned IT professional.
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PittleyDunkin ◴[21 Nov 24 02:01 UTC] No.42200308{5}[source]▶
I don't think you need to be an "IT professional" to understand that not paying money doesn't imply that you aren't giving away value.
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1. kortilla ◴[21 Nov 24 02:07 UTC] No.42200346{6}[source]▶
This is disingenuous. They charge for gems and this model is well understood to make a fortune without selling user data at all
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2. PittleyDunkin ◴[21 Nov 24 03:22 UTC] No.42200787[source]▶
> They charge for gems and this model is well understood to make a fortune without selling user data at all

I don't understand what this has to do with the topic at hand. Are you suggesting that people can't conceive of the sale of their data because they can conceive of whales amortizing the cost of their video games? That seems contradictory in your estimation of people's ability to grasp the world.

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3. Dylan16807 ◴[21 Nov 24 03:59 UTC] No.42200956[source]▶
Did you forget your original question?

"How did you imagine they were making money without pimping your data?"

I imagined they were making money in the big obvious way they make money!

I can conceive of them selling user data, but it's not their core business model, and they would operate basically the same if they couldn't sell user data. It was never some obvious thing that they would do this.