A Microsoft executive described large-scale scraping for AI training as potentially the "largest theft of labor in human history," according to newly unsealed court documents in the copyright battle between Microsoft, OpenAI and major news publishers.
These internal documents revealed eyebrow-raising comments from Microsoft Director of Applied Science Brent Hecht, who said the mass scraping of news articles by AI companies is an "astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions," and that using copyrighted material under the guise of "fair use" makes a "complete mockery" of the fair use definition.
In the same lane, but separately, the documents revealed real concern among officials at both Microsoft and OpenAI that AI chatbots could substantially reduce traffic to news organizations, which then discourages journalists as it's no longer a financially viable path, which then reduces the supply of high-quality information that AI models need to sustain themselves. This process is referred to as a "doom loop" within the documents.
Microsoft data cited by the publishers showed click-through rates falling by between 51% and 94% for some outlets when users received AI-generated answers instead of traditional search results. OpenAI's head of ChatGPT, Nick Turley, internally described AI as an "existential threat" to publishers and wrote that the company's products were "largely substitutive, period."
The publishers argue the documents strengthen their case that AI products compete with and financially harm the sources used to develop them. Microsoft disputes that conclusion and says Hecht's comments represent one employee's personal perspective rather than the company's legal position.
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"The future not just of journalism but of responsible AI too depends on preserving incentives for humans to produce the creative works on which a healthy society depends," news groups argued in the documents
