AI companies are shredding rare books
AI companies are reportedly purchasing and destroying rare books to scan them for training data, utilizing high-speed machines that shred the originals. Legal rulings have categorized this as fair use, raising concerns about the permanent loss of historical artifacts.
Why it matters
This highlights a significant ethical and cultural conflict between the rapid development of AI models and the preservation of irreplaceable historical and literary heritage.
Hedgie on X: "🦔AI companies are bulk-buying rare books, scanning them through high-speed machines that cut the spines off, and shredding the originals. A service called ISBNdb facilitates orders of up to a million books and keeps buyers anonymous. Pre-2022 books are premium because they're free of AI-generated text. A federal judge ruled the practice is fair use because eliminating the original means only one copy exists at a time. Anthropic hired the former head of Google Books partnerships to obtain "all the books in the world."
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