{"version":1,"type":"story","url":"https://digestai.news/story/microsoft-scientist-calls-ai-training-the-largest-theft-of-labor","json":"https://digestai.news/story/microsoft-scientist-calls-ai-training-the-largest-theft-of-labor.json","markdown":"https://digestai.news/story/microsoft-scientist-calls-ai-training-the-largest-theft-of-labor.md","slug":"microsoft-scientist-calls-ai-training-the-largest-theft-of-labor","headline":"Microsoft scientist calls AI training the largest theft of labor","summary":"Dr. Brent Hecht, Microsoft’s Director of Applied Science, described AI model training as “the largest theft of labor in human history” in a filing for the consolidated OpenAI copyright lawsuit before Judge Sidney H. Stein. Hecht’s comments are presented as his individual view, not a legal analysis, and Microsoft later said the remarks reflect only one employee’s perspective.\n\nThe plaintiffs – including The New York Times, the Daily News Group, the Center for Investigative Reporting and Ziff Davis – cite internal Microsoft data showing click‑through rates dropping dramatically when users see Copilot results versus traditional Bing: 87%‑93% for the Times sites, 83%‑91% for Daily News, and 51%‑94% for Ziff Davis. The brief also lists the volume of copyrighted material in OpenAI’s training sets, noting more than 91,692 copies of plaintiffs’ works overall, with WebText2 containing at least 6,552 Times articles, 18,609 Daily News pieces and 66,780 Ziff Davis items, plus a Mango dataset of at least 160,903 unique plaintiff works and a New York Times Annotated Corpus of over 1.8 million articles.\n\nThe United States filed a statement of interest arguing that training on copyrighted text is fair use, while OpenAI calls the lawsuit an “undeserved payday.” The case could determine whether large‑scale data scraping for foundation models constitutes copyright infringement, shaping future AI development and publisher rights.","keyPoints":["Brent Hecht called AI training “the largest theft of labor” in the OpenAI copyright case filing.","Click‑through rates fell 87‑93% (Times), 83‑91% (Daily News) and 51‑94% (Ziff Davis) when users saw Copilot vs Bing.","OpenAI’s training data include over 91,692 copies of plaintiffs’ works, with 6,552‑66,780 copies per source and 160,903 in the Mango set."],"whyItMatters":"The allegation frames AI training as massive copyright theft, and the court’s ruling could set precedent for how future AI models use copyrighted content, affecting publishers and AI developers alike.","category":{"slug":"policy","name":"Policy & Regulation","url":"https://digestai.news/category/policy"},"entities":{"companies":["Microsoft","OpenAI","The New York Times","Daily News Group","Ziff Davis"],"models":[],"people":["Brent Hecht","Satya Nadella","Nick Turley","Jack Clark","Greg Brockman","Nick Ryder"]},"firstPublishedAt":"2026-09-21T07:24:00Z","updatedAt":"2026-09-21T16:08:00Z","sourceCount":2,"hasPrimarySource":false,"sources":[{"outlet":"thenextweb.com","title":"A Microsoft scientist called AI training the largest theft of labor","url":"https://thenextweb.com/news/microsoft-theft-of-labor-doom-loop-unsealed-brief-openai","publishedAt":"2026-09-21T07:24:00Z","type":"press","primary":false,"lead":true},{"outlet":"CNBC Technology","title":"Historic lawsuit sparks flurry of option activity in NY Times stock","url":"https://cnbc.com/2026/09/21/historic-lawsuit-sparks-flurry-of-option-activity-in-ny-times-stock.html","publishedAt":"2026-09-21T16:08:00Z","type":"press","primary":false,"lead":false}],"sourceNotes":null,"discussions":[],"thread":{"title":"Media Giants Sue AI Over Labor Theft","url":"https://digestai.news/thread/microsoft-exec-called-ai-scraping-largest-theft-of-labor-in-human-history","storyCount":4},"cite":{"text":"Digest AI, \"Microsoft scientist calls AI training the largest theft of labor\", 21 September 2026, https://digestai.news/story/microsoft-scientist-calls-ai-training-the-largest-theft-of-labor","publisher":"Digest AI","title":"Microsoft scientist calls AI training the largest theft of labor","datePublished":"2026-09-21T07:24:00Z","url":"https://digestai.news/story/microsoft-scientist-calls-ai-training-the-largest-theft-of-labor"},"generatedBy":"Written by Digest AI's editorial model from the linked sources; the sources are the record.","license":"Headlines, digests and key points are written by Digest AI and may be quoted with a link to the story page. Linked articles belong to their publishers. Terms: https://digestai.news/terms#reuse"}