Microsoft exec called AI scraping the “largest theft of labor in human history”
Unsealed filings in the NYT-led copyright suit reveal Microsoft and OpenAI executives internally called news scraping 'the largest theft of labor in human history'.
A summary judgment motion unsealed in the New York Times-led copyright case shows Microsoft's Brent Hecht called AI news scraping 'an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions' and mocked the fair use argument. OpenAI's Nick Turley described chatbots as 'largely substitutive' and an existential threat to publishers, and internal messages show a crawler 'hack' to bypass the NYT paywall that Greg Brockman applauded. Microsoft documents recorded 83-93 percent click-through-rate drops for some news plaintiffs, and plaintiffs plan to focus on articles with extensive verbatim output overlap.
- Microsoft's Brent Hecht called news scraping 'the largest theft of labor in human history'.
- OpenAI's Nick Turley said chatbots are 'largely substitutive' and an existential threat to publishers.
- Internal message showed a 'hack' letting OpenAI crawlers bypass the NYT paywall.
- Microsoft recorded 83-93% click-through-rate drops for some news plaintiffs.
- Plaintiffs limit summary judgment to articles with extensive verbatim overlap.
- Victims
- The New York Times
- Countries
- United States
From the original article
7 min read at arstechnica.com
Microsoft, OpenAI emails reveal fear of AI “doom loop” killing news orgs.
By Ashley Belanger · arstechnica.com
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