00:00Are Pokemon Go players unknowingly helping to train AI?
00:06Remember Pokemon Go, the 2016 mobile game that sent millions of people in Europe and around the
00:12world off to chase virtual creators in the real world. But while players have been busy catching
00:17Pokemon, it seems they were on another mission unbeknownst to them. Online, users have claimed
00:22that they have also been generating massive amounts of visual data for the company beyond
00:27the game as they play. But is this true? In a word, yes, and according to MIT Technology Review,
00:33this data didn't just sit unused. Niantic, the company beyond the game, has an AI division called
00:38Niantic Special. It uses images to build highly detailed 3D maps of the real world. But players
00:44didn't generate this data just by walking around. Since 2020, Pokemon Go has included an augmented
00:50reality scanning feature. First, you need to reach level 20 in the game. Then, you have to actively
00:55choose to scan a location. Niantic told theCUBE that these scans are completely optional and submitted
01:02anonymously to improve its visual positioning system, a tool designed to locate objects precisely
01:07even where GPS fails. In our own test, the app offers these scans as optional field research tasks,
01:13with in-game rewards as incentives. Before activating the feature, it says you will contribute to the
01:19development of an AR mapping technology and that the data will be sent to a third-party service.
01:24By taking a closer look at its term of service, Niantic says that by using the AR feature,
01:31players grant the company the right to reuse this data to improve its technology.
01:35With billions of images collected, Niantic Special says it has trained tens of millions of neural
01:41networks, helping build a detailed 3D map of the world. It is important to know that Pokemon Go is
01:46not the only thing that Niantic has been using to train its AI. The company also uses data from drones,
01:52robots, and satellites.
01:55The company also uses data from drones, robots, robots, and satellites.
01:58it is Schlissel's data for dk surveillance.
01:58So,
