Pokémon Go players unwittingly built Niantic a 30-billion-image AI dataset
SumitGup · x · 2026-10-14
A viral thread argues Pokémon Go's 143 million players spent 8 years scanning parks, storefronts and sidewalks via their phones, giving Niantic a visual database of 30 billion real-world images — reportedly used to sell GPS-free visual navigation to delivery robots. Framed as 'the biggest data heist in history,' though Niantic's crowdsourced scanning for geospatial AI is documented.
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