Pokemon Go Data Was Used To Help Train AI Systems Being Developed For Military Drones (dronexl.co)
- Reference: 0183756938
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/06/12/0558244/pokemon-go-data-was-used-to-help-train-ai-systems-being-developed-for-military-drones
- Source link: https://dronexl.co/2026/06/09/pokemon-go-scans-niantic-vantor-military-drone-navigation/
> The pipeline runs from a mobile game to the battlefield in three steps. Players scanned the physical world. Niantic Spatial turned those scans into a 3D map that lets a machine locate itself by sight when satellite signals fail. And in December 2025, Niantic Spatial announced a partnership with Vantor, the defense and intelligence firm formerly known as Maxar Intelligence, to fuse that ground-level system with Vantor's aerial navigation software for use in GPS-denied operations.
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> I have spent years covering how drones lose their way the moment an electronic warfare unit switches on a jammer, a problem that has spread from the battlefield into civilian airspace, from Ukrainian workshops cycling through navigation generations to American programs scrambling for alternatives. The unsettling part of this story is not the technology. It is where the training data came from, and whether the people who supplied it would have agreed had anyone explained the destination.
"Now as part of Scopely (the Saudi-owned company that acquired Niantic last year for $3.5 billion), Pokemon GO data is not shared with Niantic Spatial," a company spokesperson [3]said in a statement to Kotaku . "AR Scans collected through Pokemon GO were submitted voluntarily by players who opted into the feature and were subject to the applicable Terms of Service and Privacy Policy at the time. The discontinuation of AR scanning and the end of data sharing with Niantic Spatial were part of the transition planning associated with Pokemon GO's move to Scopely."
[1] https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/03/16/2136229/pokemon-go-players-unknowingly-trained-delivery-robots-with-30-billion-images
[2] https://dronexl.co/2026/06/09/pokemon-go-scans-niantic-vantor-military-drone-navigation/
[3] https://kotaku.com/pokemon-go-niantic-spatial-drone-ai-map-training-gps-2000705669
Pokemon go go go! (Score:1)
Get off your buts and Pokemon Go do some pre-strike reconnaissance!
Terrain following navigation tech predates GPS (Score:3)
Using the Pokemon data is a pretty interesting repurposing of the data. However terrain following navigation technology has been around longer than GPS, Developed in the 1950s/60s, operational in the 1970s. The uniqueness here is a new way to generate a 3D terrain map.
Re:Terrain following navigation tech predates GPS (Score:4, Interesting)
> Using the Pokemon data is a pretty interesting repurposing of the data.
It's literally not repurposing. They always intended the game to deliver high resolution imagery coupled with positioning information that could be used for non-game purposes.
Re: (Score:2)
Like usual, for anyone who doubts that was the intention, it's right there on page 2,051 of the super-fine print!
Quite clever, really. (Score:3)
- "I'm sorry, general, we have no visibility into this particular area."
- "Just put a rare Pokémon in there and let the public do the rest."
Re: (Score:2)
Nope. That's just Vladimir Putin.
Dupe? (Score:2)
Didn't we have the news like 6 months ago?
And we know this basically since when Pokemon Go was still called Ingress.
All your gaming data belongs to us (Score:1)
Using gaming data to kill people? Sure, why not. Companies have no morals when it comes to making money.
Re: (Score:3)
Make it about morals if you like. However the reality is the data would have been gathered some other way. Harvested from AR see the product in your room, and navigation aides probably.
There is a bigger reality about data that I think every needs to come to terms with and integrate into the decision making at levels. That is
1) Any data aggregated and stored absolutely will be used for activities that fall outside the original purported intents for gathering the data, be that entirely innocently, because t
Re: (Score:2)
> The only real solution here is for the public to continue to reject things like flock cameras,
and autonomous vehicles.
Might as well start planning for a future where everyone has their own personal vehicle. All ICE, SUVs and diesel powered. A hellscape of your own making just so facial recognition doesn't find a picture of you buying fentanyl on a street corner back when you were a kid.
Re: (Score:1)
Doesn't Google Maps Street View achieve the same, but with a more thorough street coverage? Pokémon Go pokestop scans were in sort of in random locations, and there are lot of areas without pokestops.
Re: (Score:2)
> Doesn't Google Maps Street View achieve the same, but with a more thorough street coverage?
Kinda. They don't have the same accuracy because of the drive-by nature of the activity. They also skip a lot of roads, they can't leave roads or trails, etc.
> Pokémon Go pokestop scans were in sort of in random locations
Nope. They were in apparently random locations that Niantic wanted scanned. They fill in the gaps left by scanning programs like gmaps.
Re: (Score:2)
And, they could potentially do this kind of thing with anyone's cell phone at anytime... and it wouldn't surprise me if the mechanisms are in place to remotely activate GPS and back camera without you knowing (bypassing permissions)... sorta like using Gotham's cell phones to find the Joker in The Dark Knight.
Remember... your cell phone wasn't made in America, so despite assurances that it can't spy on you or whatever, who really knows what code or abilities might be baked into the main CPU. Same as your l
Mandatory Post (Score:2)
Gotta Kill 'em All!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinpokomon (Score:2)
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinpokomon
Duplicate? (Score:2)
Fascinating that this post and the one from [1]March [slashdot.org] are even associated (I came to it from the "Related Links" section. Is there really any surprise that military drones use the same technology that delivery drones do?
[1] https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/03/16/2136229/pokemon-go-players-unknowingly-trained-delivery-robots-with-30-billion-images?sdsrc=rel
Back in the global Pokemon Go craze ... (Score:4, Interesting)
... Moscow was clogged with Pokemon Go players, just like any other big city on the planet back in the summer of 2016. It was insane. Gorky Park, Victory Park, Arbat clogged with young people running around with their phones, collecting their Pokemons. I was surprised seeing the same crazy stuff going on just like in my homestates capital of Duesseldorf.
That such data is enough to program homing drones with ultra high precision is of no surprise. The sheer amount of data is enough to get all the accuracy you need.
Re: (Score:2)
Now with scanning turned off, they'll have to resort to driving around some sort of google maps car to get images of every single building on every single street! Oh no! They better not do that!
old news? (Score:1)
did we read about this a few months ago?
Another euphemism (Score:1)
This is another example how the doublespeak became so pervasive. The author of the original posting is not even realizing the "defense systems" described are for an offensive automated weaponry meant to search and destroy humans.It is nothing about protection, it is all about offensive targeting.
Sounds Familiar (Score:2)
Isn't this the plot of the first Pokemon movie?
A military experiment creates Mewtwo, a weaponized Pokémon who rebels against his makers and forces humans and Pokémon to confront the consequences of treating living beings as tools.
Pika-chuuuu! (Score:2)
The drone knows where it is at all times, because it knows where Pikachu isn't.
Oh no (Score:1)
Did you know that people who invented tires helped kill millions?
What about all the millions of people killed by steel manufacturing? This can not stand!