> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://adjacent.media/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# OpenAI and Microsoft Knew AI Training Would Deplete Web Content
- URL: https://adjacent.media/signals/openai-and-microsoft-knew-ai-training-would-deplete-web-content/
- Published: 2026-09-19T16:13:46.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-19T16:13:46.000Z
- Description: Internal communications show OpenAI and Microsoft explicitly discussed how scaling AI training on web-scraped data would eventually exhaust available training material—and proceeded anyway, treating content depletion as a known externality rather than a problem to solve.
- Author: Jonathan Greene
- Tags: #signal, theme-culture, journalism, media, regulation/policy

Source: [The Verge](https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/997633/openai-microsoft-chatgpt-ai-new-york-times-doom-loop-theft-google-zero?ref=adjacent.media)

Internal communications show OpenAI and Microsoft explicitly discussed how scaling AI training on web-scraped data would eventually exhaust available training material—and proceeded anyway, treating content depletion as a known externality rather than a problem to solve. This shifts the lawsuit from copyright infringement to deliberate resource extraction: AI companies betting they can monetize publicly-created content faster than creators can replenish it. The court documents amount to a structural admission about how the AI industry plans to sustain itself.