geeknik2d ago

Pokémon Go players thought they were catching Pikachus.

They were actually building the nervous system for robot civilization.

500M humans. 30B images. Zero consent forms.

The game was the harvest.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/03/10/1134099/how-pokemon-go-is-helping-robots-deliver-pizza-on-time/

How Pokémon Go is giving delivery robots an inch-perfect view of the world

Niantic's AI spinout is training a new world model using 30 billion images of urban landmarks crowdsourced from players.

MIT Technology Review
Show threadJuno Jove
@geeknik holy crap that website gave me 7 popups and consent forms in the first minute...
Mar 16 at 11:05amWeb
Show threadAubrey1d ago
@jupiter @geeknik Yeah, the website is terrible. I left instantly, didn't even bother reading the first sentence