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

(nianticlabs.com)
383 points bookstore-romeo | 1 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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1. brendoelfrendo ◴[21 Nov 24 05:05 UTC] No.42201306{4}[source]▶
I'm not a fan of the way you moved the goal posts here. You argued that Niantic would obviously use user data to fund game operations. Then we see that they don't actually need to do that, and that the game could fund itself. Then you argue that well, we shouldn't assume that they wouldn't try to monetize user data, shame on us. I agree that those who know how tech companies operate should be extremely pessimistic as to how users are treated, but I don't think that pessimism has permeated the public consciousness to quite the level you think it has. Moreover, I don't think it's a failing on the part of the user to assume that a company would do something in their best interest. It's a failing of the company to treat users as commodities whose only value is to be sold.