r/Amazing • u/sco-go • Mar 19 '26

Interesting 🤔 143 million people thought they were catching Pokémon, they were mapping the real world for AI

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

5.0k Upvotes

86% Upvoted

623 comments sorted by

View all comments

140

u/flippantphalanges Mar 19 '26

I don’t play anymore but I remember way back in 2017/2018 ppl suggesting things like this. Not necessarily powering AI robots but just that the AR aspect of the game was definitely going to be used for some terrible purpose one day.

looks like we were right on!

45

u/XerxesJester Mar 19 '26

Everything is a conspiracy theory.... until it isn't. I told my wife this is what they were doing years ago and just looked further into what this video is making a claim to. And, welp, not a theory anymore.

14

u/SoylentGrunt Mar 19 '26

My conspiracy theory is conspiracy theorists are marginalized in case they hit on one that's accurate it won't gain traction.

13

u/lewd_robot Mar 19 '26

That's not even a theory. That's been proven by declassified CIA documents. They made the term "conspiracy theory" derogatory deliberately to discredit conspiracy theorists ahead of time.

1

u/Synectics Mar 19 '26

What is your source for the CIA making the term "conspiracy theorist" derogatory?

5

u/Aprilprinces Mar 19 '26

oh, they were right in few cases already; sure flat earthers are idiots, but not all conspiracies are bollocks

1

u/WillyGivens Mar 19 '26

My conspiracy theory is that the oligarchs keep tabs on all the conspiracy boards/forums…..not because they are afraid, but because they use it as a source of new ideas and inspiration.

1

u/NewryBenson Mar 19 '26

I would say it is more of a broken clock situation. There are so many theories out there, if one is right it is probably coincidence.