For years, Microsoft and OpenAI have fought to keep certain information out of the public eye in their fight with news organizations that have accused the AI firms of teaming up to violate copyright laws by stealing tons of news content to train AI.
Perhaps most explosively, Microsoft Director of Applied Science Brent Hecht repeatedly warned in documents that scraping news for AI training was “an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions,” calling it perhaps the “largest theft of labor in human history,” news orgs said.
Microsoft recorded 83–93 percent drops in click-through rates for some news plaintiffs, and 51–94 percent drops for others.
OpenAI’s Turley agreed that there is “no good reason to click” when the chatbot provides information, the motion said.
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For years, Microsoft and OpenAI have fought to keep certain information out of the public eye in their fight with news organizations that have accused the AI firms of teaming up to violate copyright laws by stealing tons of news content to train AI.
In a motion for summary judgment that was unsealed Thursday from news plaintiffs led by The New York Times, internal documents are exposed that news groups alleged show exactly how Microsoft and OpenAI viewed the threat to news before unleashing new AI products like ChatGPT and Copilot.
Perhaps most explosively, Microsoft Director of Applied Science Brent Hecht repeatedly warned in documents that scraping news for AI training was “an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions,” calling it perhaps the “largest theft of labor in human history,” news orgs said. In another document, Hecht contradicted Microsoft and OpenAI’s argument that training AI on news content is fair use, suggesting that the plan to widely scrape news made “a complete mockery of the idea of ‘fair use.’”
Over at OpenAI, ChatGPT head Nick Turley wrote in an internal message that publishers would face an “existential threat” from commercial products trained on news content that can be used to substitute news providers.
Microsoft recorded 83–93 percent drops in click-through rates for some news plaintiffs, and 51–94 percent drops for others.
Under oath, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella testified that AI companies shouldn’t be violating news sites’ terms of use by dodging paywalls.
OpenAI’s Turley agreed that there is “no good reason to click” when the chatbot provides information, the motion said.
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