Get All Access for $5/mo

Microsoft AI CEO Says Almost All Content on the Internet Is Fair Game for AI Training Microsoft's AI CEO was asked recently if AI companies have stolen the world's intellectual property.

By Sherin Shibu Edited by Melissa Malamut

Key Takeaways

  • At the Aspen Ideas Festival, Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman said anything on the internet was fair use for AI training, though some news and media websites are a "gray area" that will be decided by the courts.
  • Suleyman's explanation of what is fair use and what isn't could align with the stance taken by other AI leaders.

In order to write, lead advertising campaigns, and power side hustles AI needs training material. ChatGPT needed about 300 billion words to get off the ground and continues to train itself based on how users interact with it.

However, human beings aren't being credited or compensated for creating the content that AI is eating up. Authors, artists, and news organizations have already filed countless copyright lawsuits against AI giants like OpenAI and Microsoft as they find that AI bots can talk about their copyrighted work "too accurately" — indicating that the works are in the AI's training data.

That's why Microsoft's AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman was asked at the Aspen Ideas Festival in late June if AI companies have essentially stolen the world's intellectual property.

Suleyman's answer? Almost all content on the Internet, with one possible exception, is fair game for AI training.

Related: A Microsoft-Partnered AI Startup Is Being Sued By the Biggest Record Labels in the World

"I think that with respect to content that is already on the open web, the social contract of that content since the '90s has been that it is fair use," Suleyman said.

Suleyman stated that "anyone" can copy or recreate the content on the open web.

"That has been freeway," he said. "That's been the understanding."

However, some news sites and publishers have asked not to be scraped or crawled.

"That's the gray area and I think that's going to work its way through the courts," Suleyman said.

Mustafa Suleyman. Photographer: Stefan Wermuth/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Suleyman leads Microsoft AI at a time when Microsoft has invested billions into the technology. His position on what is fair use and what isn't fleshes out how AI companies might defend intellectual property allegations in court.

OpenAI, for example, has allegedly used more than a million hours of YouTube videos to train ChatGPT. When asked whether YouTube or social media videos were used to make OpenAI's video generator Sora, the company's chief technology officer Mira Murati said, "We used publicly available data and licensed data" and wouldn't specify further.

AI also appears to be eating work generated by other AI, resulting in lower-quality output. Experts estimate that 90% of online content will be AI-generated within the next two years.

Related: The Most Downloaded News App in the U.S. May Have Published Dozens of Fake, AI-Written Stories
Sherin Shibu

Entrepreneur Staff

News Reporter

Sherin Shibu is a business news reporter at Entrepreneur.com. She previously worked for PCMag, Business Insider, The Messenger, and ZDNET as a reporter and copyeditor. Her areas of coverage encompass tech, business, strategy, finance, and even space. She is a Columbia University graduate.

Want to be an Entrepreneur Leadership Network contributor? Apply now to join.

Editor's Pick

Side Hustle

'Hustling Every Day': These Friends Started a Side Hustle With $2,500 Each — It 'Snowballed' to Over $500,000 and Became a Multimillion-Dollar Brand

Paris Emily Nicholson and Saskia Teje Jenkins had a 2020 brainstorm session that led to a lucrative business.

Business News

'I'm Not Trying to Land on Mars': Mark Cuban Takes Dig at Elon Musk to Explain Why His Online Pharmacy Isn't Trying to Make More Money

Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Co. is an online pharmacy co-founded by Cuban and radiologist Alex Oshmyansky.

Business Ideas

63 Small Business Ideas to Start in 2024

We put together a list of the best, most profitable small business ideas for entrepreneurs to pursue in 2024.

Business News

'It's Not About You': How to Fire Someone Effectively, According to Kevin O'Leary

O'Leary says that if you can't fire someone, you aren't the right leader for the organization.

Business News

Meta Makes $1 Million Dollar Donation to Donald Trump's Inaugural Fund

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also reportedly gave Trump a pair of Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses.

Marketing

Your Most Powerful Marketing Weapon Is Hiding in the Finance Department — Here's Why

Transform your marketing leadership by turning finance from a barrier into a strategic ally. Learn how aligning with your finance team can drive unprecedented growth and innovation.