Unsealed Documents Reveal Microsoft and OpenAI Internal AI Theft Warnings

Unsealed court documents from a federal copyright lawsuit led by The New York Times reveal that executives at Microsoft and OpenAI privately warned that their AI products pose an existential threat to journalism. Internal memos show Microsoft Director of Applied Science Brent Hecht describing the scraping of news content as an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions and potentially the largest theft of labor in human history. Hecht further characterized the strategy as a doom loop that threatens the economic foundations of content suppliers and suggested that defending the practice might make a complete mockery of fair use principles.

OpenAI's head of ChatGPT, Nick Turley, described AI products as largely substitutive to news providers, while President Greg Brockman reportedly responded ah nice to a staffer's mention of a hack to bypass The New York Times paywall. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella testified that chatbots have substituted for website visits and stated that paywalled content should be licensed for training.

While Microsoft and OpenAI publicly maintain that their training processes are transformative and protected under the fair-use doctrine, the publishers argue these internal admissions prove the companies knowingly committed theft. The United States Department of Justice and the Trump administration have intervened to support the tech companies, citing national security and the global AI race. A ruling on the publishers' request for summary judgment from US District Judge Sidney Stein is not expected until 2027.