AI Companies Really, Really Want to Buy Your Work Files and Emails
Data brokers are collecting all sorts of internal corporate files to help train AI models. Not everyone is thrilled.
AI companies are actively seeking to purchase employees' work files and emails in order to train their artificial intelligence models, according to recent reports. This trend, which has been dubbed the "data gold rush," has been gaining attention, even though it has received less scrutiny compared to the growing concerns about data centers dominating the tech landscape.
The practice involves buying and licensing professional documents and other forms of intellectual property from individuals and companies, with a particular focus on journalism and graduate students' work. One example of this is Handshake, a company that recently offered a freelance writer $1,000 for her work on a single story. Handshake confirms that it licenses professional documents from various industries to help AI labs test and train their models.
Other players in this space include Micro1 and Mercor, both of which have been described as industry leaders. These companies are reportedly so eager for data that they are even reaching out to inboxes, offering to buy workflow from live companies. The CEO of Mercor, Brendan Foody, claims that the market for data is poised to explode as AI companies demand more information to improve their models. He also emphasizes that the company ensures data is de-identified to protect privacy.
However, some critics argue that the anonymization process may not be entirely effective in removing personal identifiable information (PII) from the data. This raises concerns about the potential risks of leaking personal data. Mayu Tobin-Miyaji, a general counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, warns that it is difficult to fully eradicate privacy issues through anonymization, particularly in cases where messages contain unstructured data like personal conversations or sensitive discussions.
Despite these concerns, the data acquisition industry continues to grow rapidly, with an estimated $40 to $50 billion spent on data annually by AI labs, enterprises, and robotics companies. The market is expected to reach over a trillion dollars in the next few years, according to Micro1 CEO Ali Ansari, who founded the company in 2022.
Written by urgent.news from Wired Business's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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