Posted on 09/18/2026 9:54:36 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
Executives, others at OpenAI and Microsoft acknowledge they could undermine their content sources, according to filing in New York Times’ copyright lawsuit
Top staff at OpenAI and Microsoft knew that scraping news websites to train their artificial intelligence models may eventually damage or even destroy those publications. They did it anyway, according to a legal filing unsealed Thursday in a high-stakes copyright infringement case.
“Our AI content strategy has started a ‘doom loop’ that will hurt the performance of our models and the entire web at the same time,” Brent Hecht, Microsoft’s director of applied science, wrote in an internal document soon after the New York Times sued, according to the filing. “It is highly unusual that an end-product threatens the economic foundations of its essential suppliers, but that is the situation we have created for our LLM business with respect to its ‘content supply chain.’”
An OpenAI executive referred to an “existential threat” to publishers, according to the filing. Meanwhile, a Microsoft researcher told colleagues that compensating content creators is “in the best interest of my employer, of my country, and of many other groups I belong to.”
OpenAI employees discussed opportunities to skirt news sites’ paywalls, and leaders at both companies said their products replaced the need for users to check out original sources, according to the filing. Many publishers historically relied on web traffic to generate ad revenue and gain new subscribers.
The New York Times sued Microsoft and OpenAI in December 2023, alleging that ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Copilot trained on millions of pieces of Times content and drew on that material to serve up answers to users’ queries. The Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News and other large newspapers owned by Alden Global...
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
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They call it AI but it’s really a New Virus
You are too kind to it.
In other news, Henry Ford knew that his low-cost automobile may eventually damage or even destroy the buggy whip industry. He did it anyway,
A Nyew Virus!
Who will they plagiarize when all the plagiarizees are out of business?
This is totally false.
I work at a large tech company now and have worked at 6 over 34 years.
The AI tools we have can’t solve basic problems yet.
Complete non-sequitur.
I can see why you might be having problems with your tools.
The issue here is centralization of information.
I listen to items on you tube. They are all the same, bland and many are wrong.
It is like going to the hardware store and asking the young kid a question. You get an answer but if you know anything, it is not a good answer. If you don’t know anything, then..........
The truth is now a rare commodity.
STOP WITH THIS A I SCIFI BALONEY
You dont know what a non-sequitor is, do you
AI gets all its current event information scraping news websites and regurgitating it. That ain't sci-fi.
...Not to mention that AI may take away the Democrats/Media’s voice of “information”. They want to tell us what we “need to know”. AI will likely eventually do the same once”programmed” or legislated into Democrats control.
What do your "AI tools" have to do with the fact that AI is scraping news sites and regurgitating the information, effectively stealing the news websites' traffic and therefore their ad revenue, which is the topic of this article?
Your AI tools have nothing to do with it.
One thing that strikes me as being missing from AI is a moral compass.
I didn’t think The Wall Street Journal would be getting into the Yellow Journalism game using phrases like “existential threat” and “doom loop.” Its silly. AI will wipe out jobs in certain industries like medical transcription. For those industries, AI is a huge problem. But the idea that AI is going to put huge segments of the workforce out of a job, including the white collar workforce, is nonsense. Just look at how the very people AI is supposed to be threatening are using AI. They are using it. Not being replaced by it. They are adapting. Then you have the really silly nonsense about AI destroying humanity. Those people need to calm down and have a drink.
Would be funny if Ai ends up bringing back print since everything online would just be stolen
They will make it up or create content. Humans will become just in the way. The AI models will have learned from the best of the worst.
This seems to be our future, to be guided by “machines”.
It really does seem like the creators are becoming nervous about their creations doesn’t it?
It raised good questions on information we make decisions with. Centralization of power, govt and information is a problem.
A kingdom is a good form of government if you have a good king. How often in history has there been a good king?
People don’t want to think. They want to be told what to do.
The only counter to repeated lies and manipulation is repeated truth. We have much work to do.
How do we currently promote distributed information and thinking? There are a few colleges to support and efforts. Lights in the wilderness.
Free Republic is one, but we have to continually fight for the truth here too.
It reminds me that the great thinkers of history, men of different back grounds met at the local pub to talk about science, religion, philosophy and culture. Maybe the answer is beer.
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