Microsoft Accused of Ignoring AI Strategy Consequences

Newly unsealed court documents from a lawsuit against OpenAI have revealed that Microsoft knew about the potential damage their AI strategy could cause, yet they chose to proceed regardless. The lawsuit was filed by the New York Times in December 2023 over alleged copyright infringement.

The documents show that Brent Hecht, Microsoft's Director of Applied Science, had repeatedly warned that scraping new stories to train AI models was akin to 'an astonishing theft.' This warning suggests that Microsoft may have been aware of the potential consequences of their actions but continued with the strategy anyway.