Microsoft Exec Called AI Training "The Largest Theft of Labor in Human History"
A Microsoft exec called AI training the largest theft of labor in history
Brent Hecht, Microsoft's director of applied science, described the training of AI models as "the largest theft of labor in human history," according to internal material cited in a newly unsealed court filing and reported by the Washington Post.
Hecht also called the practice "an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions." The remarks surfaced in a brief filed by The New York Times and other news organizations in their copyright lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI, asking a federal judge to find the companies liable for unauthorized copying.
Microsoft distanced itself from the comments. A spokesperson told the Post that they "reflect one employee's individual perspective, are not a legal analysis, and do not represent the company's views."
Inside the unsealed filing
The filing details the scale of the alleged copying. OpenAI's training sets held more than 91,000 copies of Times articles, and a separate Microsoft dataset code named Project Mango drew on roughly 160,903 works from news publishers.
Plaintiffs also allege Microsoft's Copilot cut the Times' search referral traffic by as much as 93%. Internal Microsoft material warned of a "doom loop" in which AI products threaten the economic foundations of the content suppliers the models depend on.
The brief also cites a 2020 message from OpenAI president Greg Brockman, who wrote that the models were "very good at any news task" after a model completed a Times sentence he had prompted it with.
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How this could hit the options market
Copyright litigation is now a live risk factor for AI leaders. An adverse ruling or a costly licensing regime would hit margins at MSFT and add headline volatility that options traders can play with straddles around court dates and earnings.
Publishers and content owners sit on the other side of the trade. Licensing leverage supports names like NYT, while broader AI exposure through NVDA and GOOGL could see put buying if legal costs start to be priced into the buildout story.
Watch for unusual put flow in Microsoft after major filing deadlines. Legal headlines have a history of creating short, sharp implied volatility spikes that fade quickly, which rewards traders who plan entries in advance.
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