Overview

• The New York Times and other publishers are suing OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging their AI models were trained on copyrighted content without permission.
• OpenAI engineers accidentally deleted data that the plaintiffs had spent over 150 hours compiling as potential evidence in the case.
• Although OpenAI recovered some of the deleted data, the original file structure and names were lost, rendering the recovered data unreliable for use in court.
• The New York Times' legal team stated they have no reason to believe the deletion was intentional but called the incident a significant setback in their efforts.
• The plaintiffs are requesting that OpenAI conduct searches of its own datasets, arguing the company is better positioned to identify copyrighted material.