Microsoft exec calls AI the largest theft of labor, lawsuit documents reveal
Mother Jones cites internal Microsoft and OpenAI documents uncovered in a lawsuit that allege AI companies have built their products by scraping and repurposing creators’ work without consent. Microsoft’s director of applied science Brent Hecht described the practice as an “astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions” and warned that AI could create a “doom loop” threatening the economic…
Key points
- Microsoft exec warned AI could "hoover up" creators’ work, calling it an "astonishing theft"
- OpenAI found over 400,000 25‑word overlaps between ChatGPT outputs and Mother Jones articles
- AI search cut clicks to news by 90% and referral traffic from Google fell at least 30%
The filing notes that AI search reduced clicks to news articles by 90 percent and that referral traffic from Google Search and Discover fell by at least 30 percent after AI overviews were introduced. OpenAI examined 20 million ChatGPT responses, finding more than 400,000 identical 25‑word overlaps with Mother Jones pieces—similar numbers for The New York Times. Executives discussed ways to bypass paywalls, and OpenAI later added a filter that blocks output from sued publishers, a move the brief says was meant to limit evidence gathering rather than protect copyrights.
The story so far
6 episodes →- Microsoft exec calls AI the largest theft of labor, lawsuit documents revealthis story
AI exec: We may have pulled off “the largest theft of labor in human history.”
motherjones.com · 22 September 2026
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Coverage and discussion
1source- Hacker News discussion · 9 pointsnews.ycombinator.com
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