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Google Wins Spirit Bankruptcy Data for $10 Million, Sparking Employee Privacy Debate

2 reports · 2 sources

Google bid $10 million, defeating AI data company Mercor's $7.5 million offer in a bankruptcy auction, to buy roughly 30 years of corporate data left by the defunct low-cost airline Spirit Air Systems, for use in training AI. The data includes company operating records and also involves employees' personal information. The report raises the possibility that data transactions in bankruptcy auctions could draw employees into AI training without their knowledge, giving rise to controversy over data protection.

Report timeline

  1. AI companies snap up "sky-high" data: Google in talks to buy Spirit Airlines internal records for tens of millions of dollars, $5,000 per math benchmark question

    Google offered $10 million to buy the internal records of bankrupt airline Spirit Airlines, including about 100 million emails and 500 million Microsoft Teams messages, to improve AI models. AI data company micro1 announced it will spend $1 billion over the next 12 months to buy or license operational data from enterprises and build reinforcement learning environments. Mathematicians are paid about $5,000 per question to supply AI with high-difficulty benchmark questions, and about 91% of Mercor's $614 million in first-half revenue came from foundation model companies.

    36氪 · 微信公众号 ·

  2. Google bids $10 million for bankrupt Spirit's data to train AI, sparking employee data protection controversy

    Google bid $10 million (about 70 million yuan) and outbid AI data company Mercor's $7.5 million offer in a bankruptcy auction to buy roughly 30 years of corporate data left by the defunct budget airline Spirit Air Systems.

    APPSO · 微信公众号 ·