Ten years ago you were catching Rattatas with the homies, and now all that work is going to help sidewalk droids deliver hoagies. The internet is reeling this week after learning that Niantic Spatial, part of the team from Pokémon Go, recently struck a deal to train food delivery robots using data the game collected from users.
One of the world’s largest visual data sets. Niantic Spatial, an AI company spun off from Pokémon Go developer Niantic, built a model that can reportedly geolocate down to the centimeter using 30+ billion images captured by Pokémon Go users. Now:
- A Sam Altman-backed company called Coco Robotics will use this tool to teach its 1,000-bot fleet to better navigate Los Angeles, Chicago, and a few other cities where it operates.
- Coco expects Niantic Spatial’s model—which identifies locations by sight—to help in urban areas where tall buildings can interfere with GPS signals.
Players may not have realized…a 2020 Pokémon Go feature called “Field Research” incentivized image collection by rewarding them for scanning real-world landmarks. Many users may feel duped by the robotics partnership: Niantic only announced its plan to build a navigation model using Pokémon Go data in 2024.
Looking ahead…Niantic Spatial ultimately wants to build a live map of the entire world, a company executive told MIT Technology Review.—ML
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