Seattle Times and Newsday sue OpenAI, Microsoft over AI training

The Seattle Times and Newsday have filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft, becoming the latest news organizations to allege the companies used their journalism to train AI without authorization. The suit argues that generative AI could leave the journalism industry "broken beyond repair," describing the technology as "a snake eating its own tail" that could "destroy the very organizations" producing the content it trains on. "AI products like ChatGPT and CoPilot are touted as producers of content, but in fact they are rapacious consumers," the complaint reads, accusing the tools of delivering "copies and derivative imitations" of human-authored work.

The filing follows The New York Times' 2023 copyright suit against OpenAI and Microsoft, which other publishers have since joined. The Seattle Times case stands out because Microsoft and OpenAI have funded some of the paper's journalism projects and fellowships. A Microsoft spokesperson told GeekWire the company is "surprised by the lawsuit" but "always happy to sit down and explore solutions to this type of dispute."