Newly unsealed court documents from the New York Times' lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft reveal that the companies internally acknowledged their AI products were damaging the web ecosystem they depend on, with staff using strikingly candid language to describe the harm. The revelations matter because they suggest both companies knowingly pursued a strategy that undermines publishers and content creators, even as they publicly defended their data practices as lawful and beneficial, strengthening the Times' case that the firms understood the consequences of their actions.

Microsoft's Director of Applied Science, Brent Hecht, was quoted describing the harvesting of data by ChatGPT and Copilot as "the largest theft of labour in human history" and said the firm's fair use defence made a "complete mockery" of the concept; Microsoft has since distanced itself from his remarks, calling them a personal, non-legal view. A separate internal Microsoft document warned that the company's AI content strategy had triggered a "doom loop" that would harm both its models and the wider web by threatening the economic foundations of the content suppliers it relies on. The 92-page filing also cites Satya Nadella acknowledging that chatbots have largely replaced search, Greg Brockman referencing potential "gazillions" in profit, and OpenAI staff admitting they were unaware of efforts to exclude paywalled content or fully prevent ChatGPT from reproducing copyrighted material verbatim.