Pokemon Go has been using unknowing players to train AI. Depending on your feelings on AI and ethics, this could either be perfectly fine to you or this is a disgusting break of trust with the game's parent company Niantic.
ZME Science goes into way more detail, but the very basics are if you are just playing Pokemon Go like most players, catching Pokemon, spinning PokeStops, participating in raids or gym battles, you have not trained AI. It's the very specific action of scanning the area in our real world around the PokeStops that trains a program called the Large Geospatial Model. This data is used to fill in what Google Maps can't fill in from a street. This gets inside parks, into walking spaces, and more that you can't access with a car.
"The data Pokémon Go players have generated could be used for far more than just gaming," ZME Science discusses. "Open Source Intelligence analyst Elise Thomas points out that the same AI models used to enhance AR glasses could also aid military surveillance or law enforcement tracking. If an AI can 'see' the world as well as a human, it can also be used for security, monitoring, and even predictive policing."
They also share from Niantic, "This scanning feature is completely optional – people have to visit a specific publicly-accessible location and click to scan. This allows Niantic to deliver new types of AR experiences for people to enjoy. Merely walking around playing our games does not train an AI model."
So, this is gross and icky. I am not the biggest fan of AI in general. It's a constant threat to my job and the jobs of my artist friends. However, I do understand how some AI can be incredibly helpful when used as a tool and not as a replacement for humans.
What really bothers me is what I feel is a breach of ethics here. I have used the PokeStop scanner before because it gives you bonuses in the game. Sometimes it's a goal to win little awards. Niantic saying that this is a "completely optional" function is disgusting because I did not know what my scans were being used for. If I had known that feature was training AI, which could be used by the military or policing, I would have never used it in the first place. There was no chance for me to opt out of it. Also, with Niantic selling Pokemon Go to a Saudi Arabian company, that's extra fun to know where that data is going!
This is a disgusting break in my trust for to find out about one of my favorite games and my lifelong favorite franchise. I hope The Pokemon Company steps in somewhere to help stop some of this. However, it might be a situation out of the Big Pikachu's hands.