Microsoft exec called AI scraping ‘the largest theft of labor in human history,’ new unredacted filings reveal

Newly unsealed court documents have exposed internal communications from Microsoft, where executives privately characterized OpenAI’s data scraping practices as the largest theft of labor in human history. The filings reveal that despite public partnerships, Microsoft and OpenAI were internally concerned about the ethical and legal implications of scraping paywalled content from publishers like The New York Times to train their large language models. Internal warnings suggested that these data collection methods would significantly undermine the publishing industry. These revelations come as part of ongoing legal scrutiny regarding how major AI companies source training data. The documents highlight a stark contrast between the companies' public-facing narratives regarding AI development and their internal acknowledgments of the potential harm caused to content creators. This development adds pressure to the ongoing debates surrounding copyright, fair use, and the sustainability of the current AI training ecosystem.