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The Vanishing Page: AI Firms Scan Then Destroy Rare Book Editions

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11–20 of 79 posts

Re: The Vanishing Page: AI Firms Scan Then Destroy Rare Book Editions

#11

Forever preserving the content of a rare book by consuming one (1) copy is the kind of thing we should always be doing more of. Roughly nobody would have had access to that copy. Roughly everyone can now benefit from its content.

Roughly Anthropic owners benefit from the content, unless the scans are made available somehow.

Re: The Vanishing Page: AI Firms Scan Then Destroy Rare Book Editions

#12

Forever preserving the content of a rare book by consuming one (1) copy is the kind of thing we should always be doing more of. Roughly nobody would have had access to that copy. Roughly everyone can now benefit from its content.

> Roughly everyone can now benefit from its content.

You mean, roughly everyone who uses that particular model provider’s products. For truly rare books, this has an anticompetitive flavor, since it ensures others can’t train models from the same knowledge.

Re: The Vanishing Page: AI Firms Scan Then Destroy Rare Book Editions

#13
post #2

Yes, since we complained about them violating copyright so much, it does not violate copyright if they destroy the original, so they are now destroying the original. We got our demands met.

That's not how copyright works, at all.

It absolutely is. By destroying the original they retain the one copy they were licensed. It explicitly discusses that this was judged fair use in a court of law, because of the destruction of the original, as this becomes a transformation of the original work rather than a duplication.

Don’t hate the player, hate the game.

Re: The Vanishing Page: AI Firms Scan Then Destroy Rare Book Editions

#14

Forever preserving the content of a rare book by consuming one (1) copy is the kind of thing we should always be doing more of. Roughly nobody would have had access to that copy. Roughly everyone can now benefit from its content.

I have a deep rooted doubt that "roughly everyone can now benefit from its content" If there's any value in the content it will immediately be monetized with an aggressive pay structure and had it sat in a library, that same value would be free.

Re: The Vanishing Page: AI Firms Scan Then Destroy Rare Book Editions

#16
post #7

Nowhere are the supposed rare books listed. Confuses "(not all that) old books" with "rare books". Ragebait, nothing more.

They are academic titles from the last few decades for the most part, and are rare because the print runs were typically short, and the prices typically eye-watering. “Semantic analysis of cotton processing terminology in Des Moines, 1993-1996, 8th edition”, that sort of fun.

Re: The Vanishing Page: AI Firms Scan Then Destroy Rare Book Editions

#17
On the surface it seems bad, although many of these books were probably rotting in place rather than being read. If the companies are willing to make the digital version available this may actually prreserve the books.

More troubling to me is the focus on pre-2022 data. This indicates that the companies are seriously worried about model collapse, where the future models become worse becuase they are being fed by generated data instead of real human data.

This is actually my worse case scenario for AI: the models become good enough to disrupt entire industries in the next 10 years, but then stay frozen at that level. Model drift then kicks in because the world will keep changing but the models do not, and in a few decades we actually regress instead of progress becuase they won't be enough skilled humans to drive advances.

Re: The Vanishing Page: AI Firms Scan Then Destroy Rare Book Editions

#18
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how copyright works, at all.

Yes, actually it is

I'm going to buy a Taylor Swift CD, rip it as MP3s, destroy the CD, and put the MP3s online...

Will I get sued?

Re: The Vanishing Page: AI Firms Scan Then Destroy Rare Book Editions

#19

Forever preserving the content of a rare book by consuming one (1) copy is the kind of thing we should always be doing more of. Roughly nobody would have had access to that copy. Roughly everyone can now benefit from its content.

One (1) company destroys and (illegally?) copies a rare book. This knowledge is now of that company, not of humanity. Other companies will feel the need to do the same and before you know it knowledge is walled off in the gardens of the AI companies, and the rare books are gone and destroyed.

Re: The Vanishing Page: AI Firms Scan Then Destroy Rare Book Editions

#20
post #4

Yay capitalism! Imagine how much value is being created for shareholders by this destruction! Another example of "great work" being done! Jokes aside, I don't know what I would do in this situation either. Maybe find a way to mark "rare" or "out of print" books and sell/auction the "pages"? Or make the scanned book available via some mechanism?

You could “ingest” them all into a “model” and sell access to the information within them via “token usage”
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