# Microsoft director calls AI scraping 'the largest theft of labor in human history' in NYT lawsuit filings

> Legal briefs in the New York Times lawsuit against OpenAI reveal a Microsoft director describing AI web scraping as the largest theft of labor in human history.

- Canonical: https://extractfeed.io/story/microsoft-director-calls-ai-scraping-the-largest-theft-of-la-dc8b1f7/
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- Beat: Legal & Policy · Evidence: Reported · Type/significance: analysis/4 · First seen: 2026-09-19T23:25:21.001828+00:00 · Updated: 2026-09-19T23:25:21.001828+00:00 · Edition: 2026-11-05
- Framing: model-written (headline, standfirst, why it matters, tags); source facts deterministic

## Briefing
- Hacker News: Legal briefs in the New York Times lawsuit against OpenAI reveal a Microsoft director describing AI web scraping as the largest theft of labor in human history.

## Why it matters
This internal characterization from a key industry player underscores the deep legal and ethical fault lines around using public web data for AI training. It signals that even within major AI companies, there is acknowledgment of the potentially exploitative nature of large-scale scraping, which could influence court rulings and future regulation around data extraction practices.

## Sources
- Reported · Hacker News · 2026-09-19 — [Microsoft director: AI scraping 'the largest theft of labor in human history'](https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/microsoft-director-called-ai-scraping-the-largest-theft-of-labor-in-human-history-while-openai-head-brands-chatgpt-an-existential-threat-to-publishers-revelations-come-from-legal-briefs-filed-in-nyt-lawsuit)

## Watch next
Will this admission by a Microsoft director be used as evidence to reshape the legal boundaries of AI training data collection?

Topics: Microsoft, OpenAI, New York Times, ai-scraping, copyright, legal-briefs, web-scraping, data-ethics

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