this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2026
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AI labs buy, scan, shred millions of rare books (www.news.com.au)
submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by themachinestops@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Artificial intelligence labs are in a new arms race to buy up millions of rare books, slicing them open, scanning the pages and pulping the remains — sparking concerns that the last remaining copies of out-of-print texts are being destroyed on an industrial scale.

ISBNdb notes that “print books from the pre-LLM era are structurally guaranteed to be free of this contamination”.

“Millions of the most valuable books have never been digitised. They exist only in physical form, scattered across library shelves, used bookstores, and out-of-print catalogues. We get them to you at scale.”

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[–] Goodlucksil@lemmy.dbzer0.com 36 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (18 children)

What's the point of destroying books after scanning them instead of reselling them apart from *hurr durr we are evil*?

[–] leds@feddit.dk 10 points 4 weeks ago

Do make sure that knowledge is only available through their model and otherwise lost to humanity.

Same with bombarding small websites until they give up and pull the plug.

Everything is fucked

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