A Microsoft applied science director called AI training the largest theft of labor in human history, unsealed court filings show
Microsoft’s director of applied science has called the training of AI models the “largest theft of labor in human history,” per WaPo
Context
The quote, from inside one of the defendants, gives publishers suing Microsoft and OpenAI a powerful line as their copyright case heads toward summary judgment.
The New York Times and other news publishers are suing OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement over AI training, in a consolidated case before Judge Sidney Stein. The quote comes from a brief that was unsealed on September 17, and unusual_whales resurfaced the Washington Post's report on October 12. Microsoft has argued in court that training on such material is fair use.
Deep dive
On October 12, unusual_whales posted that Microsoft's director of applied science has called the training of AI models the largest theft of labor in human history, citing the Washington Post. The Post first reported the quote on September 17, when a legal brief filed by the New York Times was unsealed.
According to TechCrunch and Ars Technica, the executive is Brent Hecht, Microsoft's Director of Applied Science. In a January 2023 internal memo he called AI training through mass scraping an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions and the largest theft of labor in human history. Ars Technica reported that he also wrote the plan to widely scrape news made a complete mockery of the idea of fair use.
TechCrunch reported that the filings say OpenAI's mid training datasets alone contain more than 91,692 copies of works from the Times, the Daily News and the Center for Investigative Reporting. According to It Does What Now and other outlets, a later Hecht memo warned that Copilot risked becoming a doom loop for the publishers whose content trained it.
Microsoft told reporters the memos reflect Hecht's personal opinion, not the company's legal position.
The Next Web reported that Microsoft's own data showed Copilot cut news click throughs by up to 94 percent.
What to expect next
Watch for Judge Stein's ruling on the summary judgment motions in the consolidated case, which could decide whether training on news content counts as fair use.
Also watch whether Microsoft or OpenAI respond to the internal documents in their own filings, and whether the revelations push more AI companies toward paid licensing deals with publishers, which Satya Nadella reportedly endorsed for paywalled content in his deposition.