Sorry, the unlicensed reproduction of those works via machine. Missed a word but it’s important. Most machines do not reproduce works in unlicensed ways, especially not by themselves. Then we talk users. Yes, if a user utilizes a machine to reproduce a work, it’s on the user. However, the machine doesn’t usually produce the copyrighted work itself because that production is illegal. For VCR, it’s fine to make a tv recorder because the VCR itself doesn’t violate copyright, the user does via its inputs. If the NYT input its own material and then received it, obviously fine. If it didn’t though, that’s illegal reproduction.
So here I expect the court will say that OpenAI has no right to reproduce the work in full or in amounts not covered by fair use and must take measures to prevent the reproduction of irrelevant portions of articles. However, they’ll likely be able to train their AI off of publicly available data so long as they don’t violate anyone’s TOS.