GoKawiilSealed briefs in NYT v. OpenAI reveal Microsoft, OpenAI leaders' fears over AI scraping
Newly unsealed portions of a legal brief in The New York Times' copyright lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft show internal admissions from both companies' executives. Microsoft's director of Applied Science, Brent Hecht, reportedly called AI training data scraping 'the largest theft of labor in human history,' while OpenAI's Head of ChatGPT, Nick Turley, described the chatbot as an 'existential threat' to publishers. The filing also cites data showing Copilot slashed click-through traffic to the Times by up to 93% compared to Bing search.
GoKawiil's interpretation of the reporting above, not reported fact.
These internal statements could become key evidence for the Times as it seeks summary judgment, since they suggest company leaders privately recognized the harm their products cause to content creators and publishers even as they publicly defended their AI training practices. If courts find such admissions credible, they could reshape how fair use arguments are evaluated across the broader AI industry's use of copyrighted material.
- Microsoft's own director allegedly called AI content scraping history's largest labor theft
- OpenAI's ChatGPT lead called the chatbot an 'existential threat' to publishers internally
- Microsoft data reportedly showed Copilot cut NYT click-through rates by up to 93%
Source: tomshardware.com — Jowi Morales, 2026-09-18
Published there as: “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”
Read the original report → The summary and analysis above are GoKawiil's own, written from reporting by the source above. Facts and quotes belong to the original publisher.