OpenAI, Microsoft executives' quotes on AI training threaten copyright defense, news outlets argue

OpenAI and Microsoft executives privately referred to their AI products as substitutes for journalism in court filings, according to news outlets including the New York Times. These quotes are said to undermine the companies' fair-use defense in a copyright case. The executives claimed that their AI training on millions of newspaper articles was protected as fair use because it transformed copyrighted material into new content.

However, the newly released quotes suggest otherwise. OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, and others expressed concerns about the potential threat their products pose to news organizations. They claimed that publishers were facing an existential threat from AI products that were largely substitutive and would become even more so as they improved.

The news organizations argue that these statements undermine the tech companies' fair-use defense in the infringement claims.