Google Clears Path To Feed Its AI 500 Million Chats From Dead Airline’s Workers

Former airline workers’ office chats may soon train one of the world’s biggest artificial intelligence models.

Aviation unions cleared the way for Google to use chat data from the defunct Spirit Airlines employees to train its AI models, according to a Tuesday Association of Flight Attendants-CWA announcement. If approved, the deal could encourage other big tech companies to purchase workplace data in order to train their models.

“Worker data privacy in the age of AI has become a whole new worker’s rights issue,” Sara Nelson, international president of the AFA-CWA, said in the release. “Now we will take this issue to all of our employers to secure contractual protections and demand lawmakers protect workers everywhere through federal and state law.”

The big tech company will not access personal health data such as drug and alcohol testing, disability data or payroll records, according to the AFA’s list of protections. The AFA-CWA said Google agreed to “a rigorous de-identification process” to ensure the company does not receive personal data, the announcement