Newly unsealed court documents revealed internal concerns at Microsoft and OpenAI regarding the use of millions of news articles to train AI systems. Microsoft employees debated whether OpenAI's practices constituted the "largest theft of labor in human history," fearing a "doom loop" that could threaten the quality of large language models. One 2023 internal document warned that millions would soon view AI models "hoovering up" their work as "an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions."

Inside OpenAI, Nick Turley, who led the ChatGPT development team, expressed concern in a June 2023 memo that AI posed an "existential threat" to publishers. By February 2024, he wrote that AI products "will get more and more substitutive as they get better."

These discussions surfaced in a lawsuit filed by The New York Times against OpenAI and Microsoft in late 2023, joined by eleven other publishers. Judge Sidney H. Stein of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York is considering summary judgment motions. Publishers argue the tech companies violated copyright law by scraping articles without permission or payment. Microsoft and OpenAI maintain their actions fall under fair use protections. Satya Nadella stated in a deposition that paywalled content should be licensed, and he would have required retraining if aware of such scraping.

A Microsoft spokesperson, Alex Haurek, clarified that internal memos by Brent Hecht did not represent company views, noting Hecht was a researcher presenting "divergent perspectives."