AI companies destroy rare and non recoverable physical books • Hacker News Board

Re: AI companies destroy rare and non recoverable physical books

#11

Post by Legend2440 » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 7:31 PM UTC

qarl2 wrote: post #6

Legend2440 wrote: post #4

Who says they're rare and nonrecoverable? If they're bought in bulk from used booksellers, they're probably quite common titles. We throw away nearly a billion books every year. They're not sacred, and scanning a few million isn't a tragedy. People just don't like AI and want to be outraged about it.

And... at the very most... each AI company destroys ONE copy of a book.

Well, if they're bought in bulk, there's gonna be some duplicates. They probably don't know what they're buying until they start scanning.

But still, the number of duplicates will be inversely proportational to the rarity of the book. Lots of copies of James Patterson and Twilight, probably few or zero rare 16th-century manuscripts.

Re: AI companies destroy rare and non recoverable physical books

#12

Post by HelloUsername » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 7:31 PM UTC

Discussed on 27.jul.2026 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49068738 515 comments

Re: AI companies destroy rare and non recoverable physical books

#13

Post by Aboutplants » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 7:31 PM UTC

People underestimate the massive number of completely useless books that have been published over the centuries. Any significant historical or social contributions are not in danger of going away.

Re: AI companies destroy rare and non recoverable physical books

#14

Post by zuzululu » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 7:33 PM UTC

headline is misleading destroy implies the work is lost but AI companies are scanning them to preserve the contents and learn from it and which we will collectively benefit and add to the GDP

it is very common to break the back bones of books for mass scanning, I use one at home, I find old books offline, usually people try to donate them to the library but i buy it from them for scanning. It's the only way to economically and fast, there's no good solution beside cutting the spine and feed them into my scanner.

Re: AI companies destroy rare and non recoverable physical books

#15

Post by pfdietz » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 7:34 PM UTC

If books were precious physical objects of great value, why is that not reflected in their prices? Used books are usually worthless.

And if their inherent value was so great, regardless of supply or use, wouldn't we be able to churn out infinite value by just printing enormous nunbers of copies and storing them?

This absurd consequence shows the outrage here is without rational foundation. It's feelings run amok. Feels are not a good way to think, people.

Re: AI companies destroy rare and non recoverable physical books

#16

Post by beering » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 7:34 PM UTC

Terr_ wrote: post #2

At least 80% of the anger here is misdirected, we should be blaming stupid copyright laws created over the last several decades by big-media lobbyists. Even if the person running the scanner treated every book with utmost love, museum-level care, and holy sanctity... copyright law would still require them to shred/burn the pristine antique book at the end anyway , or else they get sued for bazillions by the modern co…

Is that true? I don’t remember Google Books destroying scanned books and they scanned a ton of books.

Re: AI companies destroy rare and non recoverable physical books

#17

Post by pixl97 » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 7:36 PM UTC

Legend2440 wrote: post #11

qarl2 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And... at the very most... each AI company destroys ONE copy of a book.

Well, if they're bought in bulk, there's gonna be some duplicates. They probably don't know what they're buying until they start scanning. But still, the number of duplicates will be inversely proportational to the rarity of the book. Lots of copies of James Patterson and Twilight, probably few or zero rare 16th-century manuscripts.

I would assume the very first step would be cataloging the author, title, and revision of the book so hundreds of thousands of hours of time are not wasted scanning duplicates.

Re: AI companies destroy rare and non recoverable physical books

#18

Post by josefritzishere » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 7:36 PM UTC

This is horrifying and dystopian.

Re: AI companies destroy rare and non recoverable physical books

#19

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 7:36 PM UTC

beering wrote: post #16

Terr_ wrote: post #2

At least 80% of the anger here is misdirected, we should be blaming stupid copyright laws created over the last several decades by big-media lobbyists. Even if the person running the scanner treated every book with utmost love, museum-level care, and holy sanctity... copyright law would still require them to shred/burn the pristine antique book at the end anyway , or else they get sued for bazillions by the modern co…

Is that true? I don’t remember Google Books destroying scanned books and they scanned a ton of books.

[deleted]

Re: AI companies destroy rare and non recoverable physical books

#20

Post by Catloafdev » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 7:36 PM UTC

john_strinlai wrote: post #10

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/06/anthropic-destroyed-milli... ars from a month ago is a bit less emotional about it: " The court documents don’t indicate that any rare books were destroyed in this process—Anthropic purchased its books in bulk from major retailers " but also brings up a reasonable point that there are good ways to do this type of scanning non-destructively.

The scanning process they use is _intentionally_ destructive, not accidentally destructive.

It's not because they hate books or something. It's literally to stay in the law due to the legal rulings surrounding AI companies and copyright.

If they had the option of not destroying the books without any risk of further lawsuit, they would. They aren't like some crazy people that just want to destroy books.