Microsoft Executive Describes AI Scraping as Significant Labor Theft

<p>Microsoft and OpenAI have faced criticism from news organizations for allegedly violating copyright laws by using news content to train artificial intelligence models. Recent internal documents, unsealed in a motion for summary judgment from plaintiffs including The New York Times, reveal insights into how Microsoft and OpenAI perceived the implications of their actions prior to launching AI products such as ChatGPT and Copilot.</p><p>Brent Hecht, a Director of Applied Science at Microsoft, expressed concerns in these documents about the practice of scraping news content for AI training. He characterized it as “an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions,” and suggested it could be considered the “largest theft of labor in human history.” Hecht also challenged the companies' stance that utilizing news content for AI training falls under fair use, stating that the approach undermines the concept of fair use.</p>