AI exec: largest theft of labor in history
The gist
Unsealed court filings show a Microsoft scientist called AI training data scraping the "largest theft of labor in human history".
The quotes surface in news publishers' copyright suit.
How it unfolded
- 2023Internal Microsoft documents, including a memo by Brent Hecht, describe large models absorbing people's work as an unprecedented theft of labor.
- Late 2023The New York Times files its copyright lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft.
- Sep 17, 2026A 92-page brief is unsealed in the consolidated OpenAI copyright litigation before Judge Sidney H. Stein, after most damaging passages had been redacted.