{"slug": "microsoft-openai-workers-privately-worried-their-work-is-largest-theft-of-labor", "title": "Microsoft, OpenAI workers privately worried their work is ‘largest theft of labor in human history’", "summary": "Newly unsealed court documents in the New York Times' copyright case against Microsoft and OpenAI show internal concerns that training AI models on millions of news articles amounted to the \"largest theft of labor in human history,\" with a 2023 Microsoft document warning millions would see LLMs \"hoovering up\" their work as \"an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions.\" OpenAI's head of ChatGPT also acknowledged in an internal document that the company's products pose an \"existential threat\" to publishers. Both companies have publicly defended scraping news stories, arguing the articles were transformed into entirely new content and that no copyright rules were violated.", "body_md": "# Microsoft, OpenAI workers privately worried their work is ‘largest theft of labor in human history’\n\nSee more of our coverage in your search results.\n\n[Add The New York Post on Google](https://www.google.com/preferences/source?q=nypost.com)\n\nMicrosoft and OpenAI workers privately shared concerns that their use of millions of news articles to develop AI bots could represent the “largest theft of labor in human history,” according to newly unsealed court docs.\n\nOne internal Microsoft document from 2023 warned that millions of people would consider LLMs “hoovering up” their work to be “an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions,” according to legal filings revealed as part of the New York Times’ case against the two firms.\n\nOpenAI’s head of ChatGPT, meanwhile, acknowledged that the company’s products pose an “existential threat” to publishers, according to another internal document.\n\nBut publicly, Microsoft and OpenAI have defended their scraping of news stories off the internet, saying they did not violate copyright rules because the articles were turned into completely new content by their AI models.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/microsoft-openai-workers-privately-worried-their-work-is-largest-theft-of-labor", "canonical_source": "https://nypost.com/2026/09/18/business/microsoft-openai-workers-privately-worried-their-work-is-largest-theft-of-labor-in-human-history/", "published_at": "2026-09-18 14:20:03+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-09-18 14:24:54.447206+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "large-language-models", "ai-ethics", "ai-policy"], "entities": ["Microsoft", "OpenAI", "New York Times", "ChatGPT"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/microsoft-openai-workers-privately-worried-their-work-is-largest-theft-of-labor", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/microsoft-openai-workers-privately-worried-their-work-is-largest-theft-of-labor.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/microsoft-openai-workers-privately-worried-their-work-is-largest-theft-of-labor.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/microsoft-openai-workers-privately-worried-their-work-is-largest-theft-of-labor.jsonld"}}