Market & Regulation
AI labs buy data from defunct startups
MIT Technology Review AIhigh confidence
Why it matters
- →AI labs are turning to private corporate data as public datasets become saturated.
- →New intermediaries are emerging to facilitate the sale of 'dead' startup data.
- →Legal and privacy frameworks for selling employee workspace data remain unclear.
AI laboratories are increasingly purchasing data assets from defunct startups to supplement their training datasets. Intermediaries like SimpleClosure facilitate these transactions, selling codebases and workspace history from companies that have shut down. This shift reflects a broader industry challenge: the exhaustion of high-quality public data sources. While some deals have reached millions of dollars, the practice raises significant legal and privacy questions regarding employee data.
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