Matthew Sellers at Insurance Business reports documents unsealed in The New York Times' copyright lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI show Employees at both companies privately worried, years before it became public, that they were carrying out what one Microsoft Researcher called the "largest theft of labor in human history." The filings landed the same week Meta finished negotiating one of the largest consumer settlements in U.S. History and Florida's lawsuit against OpenAI moved closer to trial, a pileup of legal exposure that is starting to worry insurers almost as much as it worries the Artificial Intelligence (AI) companies themselves. The Microsoft documents - unsealed as U.S. District Judge Sidney H. Stein weighs summary judgment motions in Manhattan Federal Court, show OpenAI Staff discussing ways to get around News Publishers' paywalls, and internal warnings dating to 2020 that the technology could "substitute for the labor of the people who define the culture of society." The Times, which filed suit in December 2023, has never put a number on its damages claim, saying only that it is owed "billions of dollars in statutory and actual damages." Mark Geistfeld, a Law Professor at New York University, said there is "absolutely no question about the liability exposure" facing frontier AI labs, pointing to Civil Tort Law that could apply if their systems are used to facilitate cyberattacks - or worse.

To Continue Reading This Labor News Story, Go To: It’s the "largest theft of labor in human history." Insurers are backing away | Insurance Business