Publishers file new AI lawsuits

The Seattle Times and Newsday have joined a growing list of media outlets suing OpenAI and Microsoft for using copyrighted journalism to train AI models.

Journalism faces existential threat

The filing warns that the news industry could become broken beyond repair if AI tools continue to ingest human journalism to build commercial products.

“Generative AI is a snake eating its own tail that could destroy the very organizations that produce the content it’s trained on.”

Devouring original reporting

Publishers argue that generative AI tools present themselves as content creators, but function primarily as commercial consumers of original reporting.

“AI products like ChatGPT and CoPilot are touted as producers of content, but in fact they are rapacious consumers, devouring human-authored content.”

Complicated existing partnerships

The legal action is particularly notable because Microsoft and OpenAI have previously funded journalism projects and fellowships for The Seattle Times.

Tech giants express surprise

Microsoft responded to the filing by expressing surprise at the lawsuit, while maintaining that it remains open to sitting down with publishers to find solutions.