Microsoft, OpenAI workers privately worried their work is ‘largest theft of labor in human history’

Microsoft and OpenAI workers privately shared concerns that their use of millions of news articles to develop AI bots could represent the “largest theft of labor in human history,” according to newly unsealed court docs.

One internal Microsoft document from 2023 warned that millions of workers and entrepreneurs in media and publishing would consider LLMs  “hoovering up” their work to be “an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions,” according to filings revealed in the New York Times’ case against the two firms.

OpenAI’s head of ChatGPT, meanwhile, worried that the company’s products pose an “existential threat” to publishers, according to another internal document.

But publicly, Microsoft and OpenAI have defended their scraping of news stories off the internet, saying they did not violate copyright rules because the articles were turned into completely new content by their AI models.

The New York Times sued the two tech firms in 2023, alleging they had violated copyright laws by using the Gray Lady’s content without pay or permission. The following year, eight other newspapers joined the case, including the New York Daily News and the Chicago Tribune.

The newspapers are seeking unspecified monetary damages, though the Times argued in its initial lawsuit that Microsoft and OpenAI should be held responsible for “billions of dollars in statutory and actual damages.”