**Microsoft director: AI scraping 'the largest theft of labor in human history'**

> The NYT argues that OpenAI and Microsoft infringed upon its copyright over thousands of news articles. Tech Industry Artificial Intelligence Microsoft director called AI scraping ‘the largest theft of labor in human history,’ while OpenAI head brands ChatGPT an ‘existential threat’ to publishers — revelations come from legal briefs filed in NYT lawsuit News By Jowi Morales Published 18 September 2026 The NYT argues that OpenAI and Microsoft infringed upon its copyright over thousands of news articles. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works . (Image credit: Getty / Cheng Xin) Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Email Share this article 2 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement in late 2023, with the case apparently still ongoing almost three years later. Now, the publication’s legal team has asked the court for a summary judgment after it filed a revealing legal brief based on statements and documents from the defendants. According to 404 Media , these documents remain sealed or redacted at the request of both companies, with the revelations showing potentially damaging statements from their leadership, including claims AI scraping is the biggest theft of labor in human history and an existential threat to publishers. Go deeper with TH Premium: AI and data centers (Image credit: Microsoft) The data center cooling state of play The custom AI ASIC state of play America’s AI chip rules keep changing — and the rest of the world is paying the price GTC 2026: Ian Buck press Q&A transcript — VP of Hyperscale and HPC speaks out on shelving CPX and shipping LPU decode this year Demand for data center CPUs has surged, and AI agents are responsible The brief cited an internal memo dated January 2023 by Microsoft director of Applied Science Brent Hecht, where he allegedly said, “Millions of people around the world will soon consider large models ‘hoovering up’ all their work to be an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions” and also called it “the largest theft of labor in human history.” Another Microsoft document was cited saying, “almost no one intended for content they created to be used in this fashion, nor are they compensated for its use.” As ChatGPT surged in popularity throughout 2023, the software giant’s own data revealed that Copilot dropped click-through rates for The New York Times by as much as 93% compared to Bing search. Another memo by the Applied Science director called it a “doom loop” and said it would “hurt the performance of our models and the entire web at the same time.” The NYT brief quoted Hecht from the document, saying, “It is highly unusual that an end-product threatens the economic foundations of its essential suppliers, but that is the situation we have created for our LLM business with respect to its ‘content supply chain.’” Latest Videos From Tom's Hardware Watch full video here: OpenAI Head of ChatGPT Nick Turley said in internal communications that the AI chatbot is an “existential threat” to publishers as they are “largely substitutive” and “will get more and more substitutive as they get better,” while another OpenAI engin...

**来源信息**
- **来源**：Hacker News：AI 热帖
- **分类**：行业
- **发布时间**：2026-09-20 02:21（北京时间）
- **原文**：[打开原文](https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/microsoft-director-called-ai-scraping-the-largest-theft-of-labor-in-human-history-while-openai-head-brands-chatgpt-an-existential-threat-to-publishers-revelations-come-from-legal-briefs-filed-in-nyt-lawsuit)