Microsoft exec warned AI could create a ‘doom loop’ for the internet

Newly unsealed court files show that what AI companies say behind the scenes doesn’t always line up with what they tell the public. In a legal brief unsealed this week, an executive at Microsoft described OpenAI’s choice to train its models on news articles and other human-published content as the “largest theft of labor in human history.” The brief came to light through a copyright lawsuit the New York Times filed against Microsoft and OpenAI in 2023 over their practice of using the paper’s news stories to train artificial intelligence. Microsoft’s Director of Applied Science Brent Hecht made the statement, according to the brief, and also called the process of training AI models on copyrighted works “an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions.” The brief also revealed that OpenAI’s head of ChatGPT admitted that publishers like the New York Times “face an existential threat” from AI products, which he described as “largely substitutive, period” – that is, designed to replace their source material. Hecht also described large language models as “a product that destroys its supply chain.” In its lawsuit, the New York Times names Copilot and ChatGPT specifically, noting that t…