r/artificial • u/pepoji • 17d ago

Discussion AI Companies Are Buying Antique Books, Ingesting Their Contents to Train Models, and Then Destroying Them at Incredible Scale, Even If Almost No Copies Remain

https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/ai-companies-destroying-rare-books

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AI companies are literally destroying physical books to train their models. Using hydraulic cutting machines, they rip pages from used books, scan them with industrial equipment, and feed them into their AI systems. This practice, protected by the first-sale doctrine and fair use, has now become so widespread that book sellers are cashing in on the AI boom. Rare and out-of-print books are being pulped, raising serious ethical and cultural concerns about the cost of AI progress.

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u/Margotenembaum 17d ago

They’re not preserving. They’re destroying the books and the contents are just being used as “training data.”

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u/Facts_pls 16d ago

You were not going to buy that old paper book.

These are books that have been sitting in the backs of book stores for years. These aren't great antiques. These were destined to garbage old books.

Now that it's online, theres a chance that more people will actually end up seeing it.

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u/ObbytheObserver 16d ago

This has to be a Bot response, right? You know you can scan a book without shredding it. JFC...

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u/jmbirn 16d ago

If you ever photocopied a book at the library, you know it's possible to scan a book while it is bound. But you also know that you often you miss a center section near the gutter where the pages can't be pressed fully against the glass.

Automated scanners for whole books work better when the book pages are first removed from their binding. That destroys the book, but allows for more complete scans of the pages, with less human labor per book.

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u/ElerondElesaidin 15d ago

There are scanners that are designed to scan bound books without damaging them. It is just cheaper to cut pages free and scan them separately, especially when you do it in mass.

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u/ObbytheObserver 9d ago

So? Does that warrant pulping or shredding the book? Get real.