Microsoft Exec Called AI Scraping Largest Labor Theft in Unsealed Files

Newly unsealed court filings in The New York Times lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI have revealed internal communications regarding AI web scraping. In a January 2023 memo, Microsoft Director of Applied Science Brent Hecht characterised web scraping for model training as an "astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions" and potentially the largest theft of labour in history. Publishers are using the internal records in a motion for summary judgment to argue that the tech companies knowingly infringed copyrights. Microsoft responded by stating Hecht's comments represented one employee's personal perspective rather than the company's official legal stance, while maintaining that AI training falls under fair use. Source: TechCrunch