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

(nianticlabs.com)
387 points bookstore-romeo | 1 comments | 19 Nov 24 20:02 UTC | HN request time: 0.215s | source
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ggm ◴[20 Nov 24 23:40 UTC] No.42199341[source]▶
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 public knowledge not an asset class in itself.

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urbandw311er ◴[21 Nov 24 00:22 UTC] No.42199684[source]▶
I’ve been saying this about Google Maps for years, especially their vast collection of public transport loading data and real time road speeds.

People are duped into thinking they’re doing some “greater good” by completing the in-app surveys and yet the data they give back is for Google’s exclusive use and, in fact, deepens their moat.

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alwayslikethis ◴[21 Nov 24 03:17 UTC] No.42200754[source]▶
IIRC Google maps basically does not make money. I wonder if there can be a government deal to subsidize it on the condition that the data be open sourced.
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sunshadow ◴[21 Nov 24 04:17 UTC] No.42201058[source]▶
They made 11B$ last year. It has incredible amount of ads. If you haven't noticed, then that means they did a great job. (tip: look for the custom logo pins in the map. Its printing money)
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1. mightyham ◴[21 Nov 24 05:20 UTC] No.42201377[source]▶
While I have no way to validate this, I highly suspect that the routing algorithm is also subtly manipulated. There is a route I drive with regular frequency that contains a roughly 20 mile section of two mostly parallel roads, one for through traffic and one for local. Every single time I drive through, Google routes me to the local traffic road. I know for certain the local road is slightly slower and it's also simply incorrect. The only way it makes sense is if it's a bug, or my hunch is that Google weights the route a little higher because it goes by a bunch of businesses that pay for advertising.