NYT court filing: ChatGPT's head wrote that publishers face an "existential threat" and a Microsoft executive called AI training "an astonishing theft" (Financial Times)
Lawyers say AI co-founder Greg Brockman was ‘motivated by the gazillions’ he hoped to gain from models trained on copyrighted content
A court filing by The New York Times in a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft has revealed new information about the companies' AI training practices. According to the filing, a top Microsoft executive described AI training as "an astonishing theft", while OpenAI's leadership said its AI models posed an "existential threat" to publishers and journalists.
The filing also mentions that OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman was motivated by potential financial gain from models trained on copyrighted content, with lawyers suggesting he hoped to gain "gazillions". The New York Times initially alleged that OpenAI and Microsoft violated copyright law by training generative AI models on its content.
The lawsuit has been ongoing for three years, with the question of whether AI firms can legally use copyrighted material to train AI still unclear. Judges have generally been favorable to AI companies' arguments that training constitutes "fair use".
Brief written by urgent.news from Techmeme, TechCrunch, Financial Times, The Register, The Register Science — 5 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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