tech
Someone Is Mysteriously Snapping Up Used Books Around the World
Last week, the internet raged as social-media posts and news articles accused AI companies of “destroying the world’s books”—including “millions of rare” ones—by chopping off their spines to scan them more easily, and discarding them afterward. One article said the news was “sparking concerns that the last remaining copies of out-of-print texts are being destroyed.” The investor and AI skeptic Michael Burry called the practice of sacrificing rare books “evil incarnate.” Even Elon Musk weighed in, posting that he had asked the engineers training xAI’s models to “preserve any rare books in a library and scan them the hard way.”
TL;DR
- AI companies are accused of destroying physical books, including potentially rare ones, by scanning their pages for AI training.
- The practice has sparked significant public outrage, with figures like Michael Burry and Elon Musk commenting on it.
- Anthropic has confirmed purchasing and destroying millions of books for AI training in early 2024.
- The books being purchased are largely nonfiction, published between the 1970s and 1990s, and not typically considered valuable first editions.
- Companies like Zoom Books and 2077AI are mentioned in connection with bulk book purchases, though they deny involvement in scanning or destruction.
- Intermediary logistics companies like PrepFort may be involved in routing these book orders.
- Concerns exist about the cultural impact of AI ingesting vast amounts of literature, potentially undermining authors and controlling information access.