Humans Versus Robots

AI training data, copyright

Microsoft exec called AI scraping the “largest theft of labor in human history”

Microsoft called OpenAI data practices theft while both companies scraped paywalled content.

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. However, now the details that should never have been marked confidential are starting to leak. 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…