Microsoft Executive Admits AI Is the 'Largest Theft of Labour in History'

In a stunning admission that has sent shockwaves through the journalism world, a Microsoft executive has called the training of artificial intelligence models the 'largest theft of labour in human history'. The explosive comments, made by Brent Hecht, Microsoft's director of applied science, were revealed in a legal brief filed by the New York Times and unsealed on Thursday.

The remarks headline a high-profile copyright case brought by the New York Times and other news publications against tech giants Microsoft and OpenAI. Hecht, who also serves as a professor at Northwestern University, reportedly described the practice as 'an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions' in another instance.

What evidence did the legal brief uncover?

The plaintiffs argue that documents unearthed during discovery reveal how the two tech titans built a multi-billion-dollar business model on the backs of news organizations. Their work, the brief contends, was fed into AI tools in vast quantities to train them, often without explicit permission from the outlets.

According to the legal filing, internal emails, company records, and depositions with key executives highlight a tension between the companies' public legal arguments and private debates over the ethics of training AI models on journalism.

OpenAI president Greg Brockman wrote in a 2020 message that AI 'seems to be particularly good at predicting text of news articles. Like whenever i have it complete in the middle of a sentence in a NYT article, it seems to complete the sentence on point.'

In a deposition, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella acknowledged that chatbots provide 'information right there on the website on the AI platform versus needing to go to the underlying source.'

How did Microsoft respond to the allegations?

A Microsoft spokesperson pushed back, stating that Hecht's comments 'reflect one employee's individual perspective, are not a legal analysis, and do not represent the company's views.' The spokesperson added that Nadella's testimony 'spoke to broad principles and changes underway in how people find and consume information.'

OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment. The Times is now asking a federal judge to grant summary judgment, finding the two companies liable for 'unauthorized copying at each stage of the AI pipeline.'

What does this mean for the future of journalism?

For the plaintiffs, Microsoft's admission amounts to a smoking gun. 'The evidence revealed here for the first time shows that OpenAI and Microsoft knew that what they were doing was wrong,' said Steven Lieberman, a lawyer for the news companies. 'Now the cat is out of the bag. Finally, the world can see what OpenAI and Microsoft thought all along about the fairness of their own behaviour.'

Modern AI models are trained on vast amounts of data scraped from the open web. AI companies have long argued that using publicly available information is similar to a student reading books to learn. But novelists, musicians, and other creative professionals have pushed back, arguing the companies stole their work to build tools that could replace them.

During a June 1 speech, Times Publisher A.G. Sulzberger accused AI companies of 'hijacking of the public square.' He warned: 'A future where a crucial wellspring of a healthy society and a stable democracy, the truth, understanding and accountability provided by original journalism, continues to dry up.'

This is not the only high-profile case pitting legacy publishers against AI juggernauts. The Times and the Wall Street Journal are each suing the AI search engine Perplexity, while Anthropic settled with book authors for $1.5 billion in 2025.

At its core, this battle is about more than copyright. It is about whether the fruits of human creativity and labour can be harvested without consent, without credit, and without compensation. The people of Ireland, who have always valued the power of the written word and the importance of a free press, should watch this case closely. The outcome will shape not just the future of journalism, but the very nature of how knowledge is created, shared, and valued in our society.

Miriam Waldvogel contributed to this report.