The ‘largest theft of labor in human history’

A robot writing computer code, generated from that prompt by Dall-e-2

Image probably not © Mike Holderness

FOR THE RECORD, the scraping of words and images to train so-called“artificial intelligence” is “largest theft of labor in human history”. We leave the US spelling because this is not polemic from a disaffected author in London; it is the view of Microsoft’s Director of Applied Science, Brent Hecht.

The quote appears in a court filing by USnews publishers seeking summary judgment in their case against OpenAI. The document was unsealed by the court on 17 September; it had previously been available in a more heavily redacted form.

Thanks to Jason Kint for pointing out that the document also points to “AI“ engineering its own collapse in a “doom loop“ in which its “end-product threatens the economic foundations of its essential suppliers”. That, again, is the view expressed in a Microsoft document. Microsoft is the largest external shareholder in OpenAI.

Now the Freelance has to find time to read another 90 pages of the filing... and several dozen other filings in this and other cases.

© Mike Holderness

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News plaintiffs’ combined summary judgment brief courtlistener.com