The nation's oldest nonprofit newsroom is suing OpenAI and Microsoft

The Center for Investigative Reporting, the nation's oldest nonprofit newsroom that produces Mother Jones and Reveal sued OpenAI and Microsoft in federal court on Thursday for allegedly using its content to train AI models without consent or compensation. "OpenAI and Microsoft started vacuuming up our stories to make their product more powerful, but they never asked for permission or offered compensation, unlike other organizations that license our material," said Monika Bauerlein, CEO of the Center for Investigative Reporting, in a statement. The work of journalists, at CIR and everywhere, is valuable, and OpenAI and Microsoft know it." Bauerlein said that OpenAI and Microsoft treat the work of nonprofit and independent publishers "as free raw material for their products," and added that such moves by generative AI companies hurt the public's access to truthful information in a "disappearing news landscape." OpenAI and Microsoft did not respond to a request for comment by Engadget.