Pokémon Go Players Help Train AI-Powered Geospatial Model
A Large Geospatial Model to Achieve Spatial Intelligence
You probably didn’t know it, but if you played or are still playing Pokémon Go (there are more than half a million active players), you were helping train an AI-powered geospatial model that aims to map the world.
Building a Visual Positioning System
A blog post from Niantic, the software developer behind the popular game, explains how it’s working on "a large geospatial model to achieve spatial intelligence" and trying to build a "visual positioning system" to understand the world around us — and it’s using data from Pokémon Go.
How Pokémon Go Data Trains the AI Model
To clarify, Niantic is saying that just like data on the web trains AI models, the AI model it’s building needs to understand 3D spaces. An immense amount of data and photographs of 3D spaces are available thanks to Pokémon Go players creeping around the world.
Enhancing the AI Model with Pokémon Go Data
Niantic explains it like this: A local AI mapping model might understand that a church stands at a specific place, but it’s likely only seen the front of that location and can’t explain what the rest of the church looks like. With data from Pokémon Go players, who have likely walked around many churches and trekked areas that cars can’t reach (and photographed those areas), the AI, now has a good guess at what a church generally looks like.
New Feature: Pokémon Playground
The company also pointed out that it recently rolled out a new feature for the game called Pokémon Playground that lets you place a creature at a certain real-world spot for others to see. This means that placing the character and viewing it later conveniently involves using your camera, taking images from multiple angles, and sending the resulting image to Niantic.
Current Progress and Future Plans
According to Niantic, it currently has 10 million scanned locations around the world, with one million of those activated and available for use in its VPS service. It added that it receives about 1 million fresh scans each week, each containing hundreds of images.
Future Applications of the AI-Powered Geospatial Model
Niantic says it will use this data for purposes like AR glasses, robotics, content creation, and autonomous systems. So, not only did the company make money selling in-game items to players, but is also going to make money on the maps those players helped make.
Conclusion
Pokémon Go players have unknowingly contributed to the development of an AI-powered geospatial model that aims to map the world. The data collected from the game will be used to enhance the AI model, which will have various applications in the future.
FAQs
Q: What is the purpose of the AI-powered geospatial model?
A: The model aims to map the world and understand 3D spaces.
Q: How does Pokémon Go data train the AI model?
A: The data provides an immense amount of photographs of 3D spaces, which helps the AI model understand what a location generally looks like.
Q: What are the future applications of the AI-powered geospatial model?
A: The data will be used for purposes like AR glasses, robotics, content creation, and autonomous systems.
Q: How many scanned locations does Niantic currently have?
A: Niantic currently has 10 million scanned locations around the world.
Q: How many of those locations are activated and available for use in its VPS service?
A: One million of those locations are activated and available for use in its VPS service.
