Pokémon Go players unwittingly contributed to tech with military drone uses
Shocked Pikachu face
The repurposing of Pokémon Go data for AI training continues to draw scrutiny.
A player wearing a hat decorated with Pokemon characters and trading cards plays Pokemon GO on a smartphone during the in-person Pokemon GO Tour: Kalos Los Angeles 2026 event on February 20, 2026. Credit: Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images
A decade after the global craze for Pokémon Go peaked, an AI company has been using billions of real-world images captured by millions of players to develop navigation technologies for delivery robots and possibly military drones. That represents an intriguing but potentially discomfiting legacy for an augmented reality mobile game that has incentivized gamers to capture short smartphone videos of physical neighborhoods and landmarks.
The AI company, Niantic Spatial, was spun out of Pokémon Gogame developer Niantic in May 2025, after Niantic separately sold its licensed games such as Pokémon Go...
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