AI Is Buying up Old Books and Readers May Never See Them Again
AI firms are bulk-buying physical books, including rare copies, for 'structurally clean' training data, leading booksellers to fear the loss of unique literary works.
9 Articles
9 Articles
The Vanishing Page: AI Firms Scan Then Destroy Rare Book Editions
Save Your Books AI Companies Destroying Books For Training Image by TriffShutterstockAI companies are purchasing physical books in bulk, including rare and out-of-print titles, then using high-speed machines to cut the spines and scan the pages before disposing of the originals, according to court documents and industry reports. The process targets pre-2022 books preferred as free of AI-generated content, with services facilitating anonymous bul…
AI Companies Are Buying and Destroying Massive Numbers of Used Books to Train Their Models
As artificial intelligence companies compete for increasingly scarce training material, some are reportedly turning to an unexpectedly old-fashioned source: physical books. AI developers and their contractors are purchasing large quantities of secondhand books, removing their bindings and scanning the pages before destroying or recycling the originals, according to a July 21 report by Gadget Review […]
AI Companies Are Buying Antique Books, Ingesting Their Contents to Train Models, and Then Destroying Them at Incredible Scale
Traditionally, books have been good for two things: reading, and looking nice on a shelf. But AI companies are interested in neither. To those building large language models, books are nothing more than fodder to be devoured en masse before being spit out like fishbone. Often, they’re happy to use digital books — or even better, pirated digital books, as Meta has been accused of doing, and as Anthropic was forced to pay a $1.5 billion settlement…
Are American AI companies buying up large numbers of old books from German antiquarian bookstores? Numerous media outlets have reported on this suspicion. It is also assumed that the unsold books are destroyed after being scanned. The concerns revolve around copyright and cultural heritage. Are these worries justified, or is this merely manufactured outrage?
Strange things are currently going on in the antiquarians: in Germany and elsewhere, there are lots of online orders for used and old books. Many of the requested works are long-standing shopkeepers: high-quality specialist literature and special editions that have not met with any interest for many years. The orders very often arrive at night, they are obviously automated with advance payment. Dealers and industry observers suspect bad things. …
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