Microsoft internally called AI data scraping 'theft' while doing it, court files show

Newly unsealed court documents reveal that a Microsoft executive privately described AI data scraping as the largest theft of labor in human history. The filings emerged as part of ongoing litigation involving The New York Times, which has sued both Microsoft and OpenAI over unauthorized use of its content. Internal records show that both companies scraped paywalled Times articles to build AI training datasets, even as executives raised ethical concerns internally. Microsoft staff also reportedly warned that such practices could severely damage news publishers' businesses. The revelations highlight a stark contradiction between the companies' private acknowledgments and their continued data collection activities.