Defunct Startup Data Sold For AI Training As Lawyers Warn Of A Lawless Zone
If shuttered companies can sell their internal communications as training material, the privacy rules that apply to living businesses and their employees turn out to have no counterpart once the business is gone.
Reporting from 1 source: ASCII.jp.
Code, emails, and Slack histories from startups winding down are being sold as AI training data, according to a report summarized by ASCII.jp. One brokerage has handled over 150 deals. In August, Google purchased data from Spirit Airlines, which is in bankruptcy proceedings, for $10 million. Lawyers say the data carries individuals' private information and call it a lawless zone for AI training.
The deals are brokered by firms that specialize in liquidating a failed company's digital assets rather than its desks and servers. One such brokerage has closed over 150 transactions. The buyers are AI developers looking for text that did not come off the open web: internal code, staff email threads, and years of Slack messages written under the assumption that only colleagues would read them.
Spirit Airlines, which is in bankruptcy proceedings, sold data to Google in August for $10 million. Lawyers quoted in the report say the material carries personal information about employees and customers, and that no clear rule governs how it can be used once it changes hands.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.
Sources
- ASCII.jp 廃業企業のメールやSlackがAI訓練に、「葬儀屋」ビジネスが活況