Bargaining update 9/4: Statement on Seattle Times Co.’s AI lawsuit

The Seattle Times Co. announced Friday that it is suing OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright violations, alleging the companies used Seattle Times work to train large language models.

In response, the Seattle Times Union issues the following statement:

The Seattle Times Union, which represents more than 160 of the newspaper’s employees, is grateful to see the Seattle Times Co. take seriously the threat AI poses to our industry. 

In ongoing contract negotiations, however, the company has refused to guarantee that no newsroom jobs will be replaced by AI. Instead, the company has only agreed to protect reporters, ensuring that only humans (not AI) will be used to interview sources or write stories. That leaves scores of other Seattle Times jobs unprotected, jobs crucial to producing award-winning local journalism — including photographers, graphic artists, copy editors, producers and more. The Seattle Times Union has proposed language that would guarantee no union jobs in the newsroom are replaced by AI for the life of the next contract, likely three years.

If the Seattle Times Co. truly cares about the threat AI poses to journalism’s business model, it should protect the workers who produce the copyrighted material at the heart of this case.

Members of the public who agree can urge Seattle Times management to protect human jobs by signing our petition.