Microsoft exec said AI scraping was the largest theft of labor in human history, lawsuit filings reveal

Date:
Fri, 18 Sep 2026 10:07:19 +0000

Description:
NYT and countless other publications impacted by AI scraping and dropping click-throughs, but Trump seems to support it.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter Microsoft exec describes AI scraping as "astonishing theft" of labor Copilot reportedly reduced NYT click-throughs by 93% compared with Bing Trump administration supports scraping so that the US can retain its AI dominance In an earlier January
2023 memo uncovered in recently unredacted court filings, Microsoft Director of Applied Science Brent Hecht accused AI scraping of being an "astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions" (via TechCrunch ).

With generative AI posing a "real risk" of disrupting the employment of the same people who unwillingly provided that training data, Hecht went on to describe scraping as "the largest theft of labor in human history." This
comes from a 2023 New York Times case against Microsoft and OpenAI, when the publication accused the AI giants of copying and using its copyrighted work without permission. Latest Videos From TechRadar Watch full video here: AI scraping described as mass theft Microsoft's own internal research reportedly found that Copilot could reduce click-throughs to The New York Times by as much as 93% compared with its own conventional search engine, Bing.

Ultimately, the company has fundamentally admitted that LLMs could undermine the foundations of their own content supply chain, with Hecht introducing the theory of a "doom loop." You may like "Unlicensed, unrestricted AI training could destroy the ecosystem for books" quote of the day by the Authors Guild Microsoft's AI chief warns that treating AI as conscious is a huge mistake Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella warns AI users not to give away too much

Importantly, the company's CEO, Satya Nadella, even admitted that had he
known OpenAI was scraping data found behind paywalls, he would have exercised Microsoft's rights to require OpenAI to retrain its models, excluding this protected data.

As for OpenAI, the ChatGPT maker allegedly removed copyright notices from material before it entered the large datasets so that the models wouldn't re-generate those copyright notices for users. Are you a pro? Subscribe to
our newsletter Sign up to the TechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed! Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.

The case accuses OpenAI's mid-training datasets of including over 91,000 pieces of work from The New York Times, Daily News and the Center for Investigative Reporting.

While the general argument over the use of copyrighted content continues and the case against OpenAI remains open, the Trump administration did recently side with AI makers like OpenAI.

"Constraining LLM development under a misunderstanding of fair use doctrine would thwart such creative and scientific progress while hindering American prosperity and economic mobility," a statement of interest from the US Government reads.

In the meantime, this public debate is likely to last years and hundreds of other publications are likely to be impacted by unsolicited AI scraping fueling rival chatbots. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds.



======================================================================
Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/pro/microsoft-exec-said-ai-scraping-was-the-largest- theft-of-labor-in-human-history-lawsuit-filings-reveal


--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 (Linux/64)
* Origin: tqwNet Technology News (1337:1/100)