As you probably already know, The New York Times recently sued OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging that their generative A.I. tools—specifically ChatGPT and Bing Chat, now Copilot—have infringed its copyrights by summarizing and in some cases even offering verbatim regurgitations of Times articles. (Why we’ve settled on “regurgitation” versus “reproduction” or “replication” is beyond me—it makes the entire field sound disgusting and triggers my own gag reflex.) My colleague Eriq Gardner has the details of the suit, but in short, the Times wants “billions of dollars in statutory and actual damages,” although they would presumably settle for a fraction of that amount, plus a healthy royalty. Wouldn’t we all?

The Times is also seeking the “destruction” of the A.I. models trained on its content, a dramatic phrase that I can only hope involves Times staffers smashing OpenAI servers with baseball bats like that scene from Office Space, live-streamed as a benefit for subscribers. Now that’s something I would pay to see!