I think that you are overlooking the part about aggressively competing against the original creation with something that is impossible without the existence of the initial creation. Also the part where the NYT isn’t really the ones most impacted by the current pushes for adoption of LLMs and similar tech. It’s not a case of punchcard computer operators becoming obsolete. It’s a case of using technology to deny those involved in creating and evolving culture along with those in the few remaining jobs that allow one to get by the ability to make a living.

Humanity as a whole isn’t benefiting, only the ultra-wealthy who are using and refining these tools for no other purbose but to further bludgeon and dehumanize workers, grow the number on the precipice of total ruin, and increase the wealth gap further. So, the NYT merely is playing the role of “the enemy of my enemy”.

If the tools WEREN’T being used primarily to skim even more wealth and push more into poverty, there would be no problems (especially if the result were reform of the currently awful IP laws). But, we currently live in a world where billionaires are writing to profitable tech companies demanding mass lay-offs and deep salary cuts to increase stock prices, voice actors are thrown under the bus by their own union, and eating disorder helpline workers are fired en masse for unionizing to to be replaced with chatbots that cause measurable harm to vulnerable people. OpenAI deserves to be shutdown for the harm that they are enabling and profiting from.