According to an anonymous Chinese expert specializing in artificial intelligence, there is a chance that the online augmented reality game Pokemon Go could inadvertently leak military secrets.

In an interview with Global Times, the expert offered the example of a gamer playing the game at a beach in Sanya, a city in southern China's Hainan province. If the player is in an area where sensitive facilities are located, and if the player then uploads images from the game to the Internet, then the security of those facilities could be compromised.

A report on the site Ubergizmo said that some Chinese citizens are worried that Pokemon Go was actually developed by Japan and the U.S. to help search for Chinese military bases. The game potentially allows any netizen to glimpse areas where few people are normally allowed to go.

At the same time, the U.S. is also worried about military leaks caused by the game. According to a report by U.S.-based Stars and Stripes, the game caused several players to try to gain access to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, because virtual places in the game are superimposed over places in the real world.

Yang Yangzhao, a virtual reality expert from the China Academy of Electronics and Information Technology, explained that augmented reality (AR) is a live view, either direct or indirect, of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data. This requires the support of many advanced technologies, including computer vision, multimedia, data processing and sensor fusion.

Yang said that virtual reality (VR) development is combined with that of AR. While VR is already being applied in many industrial manufacturing fields, AR is still in its early stages. In the future, AR could be used in the industrial manufacturing, machine design and military fields.

According to a report by Stars and Stripes, VR has already been used in the military to help the U.S. build a nuclear-driven aircraft carrier. Meanwhile, AR is poised to replace graphing paper to increase design and construction efficiency.