[johannes1234321]

It's quite obvious that data is what pays the game. A lot of data about the players )daily routine, commute to work/school, social circles to other players, etc. which allows to derive Job, wealth, etc.), data about surroundings (where do people actually walk, drive, ... etc.)

The story here however I'm not too sure about: Isn't the game mostly played in dense urban areas? - by the time you need military drones there the area will have changed a lot (destruction, fortification, ... and overall be outdated) where I think the civilian drones (delivery, cars, ....) benefit more. While the technology certainly is dual use.

[emperorxanu]

I had assumed the purpose of the data was more in generalising across variegated input sources to better allow the drones to fly on their own in urban settings, aka, adapt more readily to randomness? Better datasets for multimodal training etc.

I am not joking though, I really would consider any data generated on public assets to be considered "releasable" to the public. How many people should get killed by self-driving cars because the company making the cars didn't have enough data to train proper models?

[johannes1234321]

I am all for public code. But mind: the whole point of Pokemon go is to collect data. If they have to publish it as open data their business case goes away.

This may be good and we'd still not have the data (but "they" can collect on their own privately/secretly)

[wartywhoa23]

> While the technology certainly is dual use.

It's dual, but its positive aspects are only unlocked after a sufficient human blood sacrifice is made by its overlords, as is the case with all dual use tech.

[fragmede]

No it's not. How does 3D printing; what blood sacrifice happened with 3d printers before they were unleashed upon the world? Hard to prove for encryption, though that one's antediluvian. Drones were around and toys for quite a while before they ever killed anyone.