Microsoft exec calls scraping 'largest theft'

Dr. Brent Hecht, Microsoft's director of Applied Science, said OpenAI's web scraping for AI training was the "largest theft of labor in human history" that could create a "doom loop."

“"largest theft of labor in human history"”

OpenAI exec called it existential threat

OpenAI executive Nick Turley said the company's training practices represented an "existential threat to publishers" in comments revealed through court documents.

“"existential threat to publishers"”

How they scraped the data

Court documents show OpenAI and Microsoft bypassed paywalls to obtain training content, scraped millions of documents, and erased copyright notices from the data.

The New York Times lawsuit

The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft in 2023, along with five other writers, arguing the companies broke copyright law by scraping stories without approval or compensation.

Microsoft disavows its own employees

Microsoft distanced itself from Dr. Hecht's comments, saying its position is that AI training is consistent with copyright law and that Copilot doesn't substitute for journalism.

AI products 'destroy their supply chain'

Internal documents show executives recognized that large AI models undermine journalism by replacing it. One engineer noted users won't click links when AI provides answers directly.

“"are a product that destroys its supply chain"”