if this was about Number Go Up, they'd probably make more money selling the despined books or something instead of destroying them and selling (or do whatever they're doing with) the raw pulp. this sounds like an expensive process and there's no guarantee that expanding these datasets is going to improve their models in a quantifiable way, let alone a profitable one. they must just get some kind of perverse pleasure out of making the world a worse place
this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2026
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they are likely sending them to the landfill instead, i think might scrape the books that are usually published online as well.
These companies need quantity over quality. They're gonna buy the cheapest books in bulk they can.
Contrary to what some might think. I'm not taking a stance for AI. I'm just pointing out, no one cared about these books 1 month ago. No one wanted to buy them. No one wanted to read them. That's why they've been sitting on a shelf in a warehouse collecting dust.
They're not valuable in any sense of the word. They're only "rare" in the sense that they sold so poorly, there was no point in printing more.
This is such a silly thing to glue on the hate-train. "They're destroying books no one wanted to read!" Oh no... anyway
"Book burning is good actually because no one reads them"
Summarized by biological human intelligence
Typical fucking anti-human attitude. If it doesn't make money then it's useless.
You do know that books (the majority in existence probably) aren't meant to be sold or read by the general public but? Like historical ledgers, accident inquiries, patents, scientific findings, family trees, weather data?
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Yeah, they sit on shelves because the average person - at least in the U.S. - is steps away from brain death.
If more people were better educated and or literate this would not be happening.
Yeah, they sit on shelves because the average person - at least in the U.S. - is steps away from brain death.
🤣
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What is a rare book, exactly? Why can't the publishers just print more if there is demand for them?
I have this great book about all the glassware in use in 1940s chemistry.
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