Newly released court documents show that multiple Microsoft execs thought AI training was an 'existential threat' to journalism.
Microsoft's director of Applied Science, Dr. Brent Hecht, said OpenAI's work was akin to the "largest theft of labor in human history" that could create a "doom loop," while OpenAI exec Nick Turley said it represented an "existential threat to publishers."
Along with the quotes, the unredacted materials also show how OpenAI and its partners got training content by bypassing paywalls, and built training datasets by scrapping millions of documents and erasing copyright notices from training data.
In another, an OpenAI software engineers told colleagues in 2023 that "no matter how prominently we show the links, users won't click."
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Newly released court documents show that multiple Microsoft execs thought AI training was an 'existential threat' to journalism.
Executives from OpenAI and Microsoft were reportedly worried about ChatGPT training that scraped millions of news articles, The New York Times reported. Microsoft's director of Applied Science, Dr. Brent Hecht, said OpenAI's work was akin to the "largest theft of labor in human history" that could create a "doom loop," while OpenAI exec Nick Turley said it represented an "existential threat to publishers." Only snippets from the documents were made public without any context around them.
Along with the quotes, the unredacted materials also show how OpenAI and its partners got training content by bypassing paywalls, and built training datasets by scrapping millions of documents and erasing copyright notices from training data.
Several such lawsuits have already swung in favor of AI companies, but judges have pointedly stated that their rulings were made because the law around AI use has yet to be settled.
In another, an OpenAI software engineers told colleagues in 2023 that "no matter how prominently we show the links, users won't click." OpenAI's Turley confirmed that, saying AI products are "largely substitutive" to journalism.
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