The NYT wants OpenAI sanctioned for allegedly faking an inability to search its own training data.

The New York Times and Daily News asked a Manhattan court on July 9 to sanction OpenAI, citing a February deposition from Vinnie Monaco indicating OpenAI had in fact searched its training datasets and outputs after claiming it technically could not. The filing alleges OpenAI kept an internal database of roughly 78 million de-identified ChatGPT conversations to assess its own infringement exposure, and deleted billions of ChatGPT responses in violation of preservation orders. OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri denied the allegations. The discovery-conduct question now runs parallel to the underlying copyright claim, and discovery sanctions have ended cases that survived on the merits.