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AI companies destroy physical books – let's scan rare books before it's too late

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Re: AI companies destroy physical books – let's scan rare books before it's too late

#61
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this scale, there are no guarantees of anything. There very likely will be unique copies in there. If these were expert archivists a lot of damage could be prevented, but given the malice and indifference of AI companies, there very likely will not be an expert archivist involved, and unique copies will be destroyed unceremoniously.

My personal wastebook at home is so rare, it's unique. That doesn't mean it needs preservation.

Like I said, at this scale, there are no guarantees for anything. Very likely will there be a unique copy of an invaluable book or letter an the person feeding it to the scanner will not know and the book get destroyed.

Like did Icelandic author Þórbergur Þórðarson ever write an a book about Esperanto, and send the only copy of it to Halldór Laxness when he was in Los Angeles? I don‘t know, but it is certainly something he is likely to have done. If such a book exists it would be invaluable to both Icelandic culture and to Esprentists. It likely would have stayed in Los Angeles where nobody would know the significance of it until it ended up in an estate sale, a used book store, and then finally destroyed by an AI company never to be discovered.

My hypothetical is just one of trillions of possibilities. At this scale very likely several of these possibilities will unessiseraly remain unknown unknowns forever.

Re: AI companies destroy physical books – let's scan rare books before it's too late

#62
post #13

I wholeheartedly believe the AI controversy on destroying books is being stirred up by the companies themselves. Copyright law requires you destroy a book, if you format shift it. If you digitise, you need to ensure its not a "copy" but that your one license went with the book. So... If enough people complain, they get to pressure for copyright changes. Which will just so happen to have massive carveouts to let them…

Since when do AI companies care about the law? Most of their training data is pirated.

The headlines about destruction came not soon after they got rapped on the knuckles and told "no more pirating".

Re: AI companies destroy physical books – let's scan rare books before it's too late

#63
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this scale, there are no guarantees of anything. There very likely will be unique copies in there. If these were expert archivists a lot of damage could be prevented, but given the malice and indifference of AI companies, there very likely will not be an expert archivist involved, and unique copies will be destroyed unceremoniously.

My personal wastebook at home is so rare, it's unique. That doesn't mean it needs preservation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence

Re: AI companies destroy physical books – let's scan rare books before it's too late

#64
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this scale, there are no guarantees of anything. There very likely will be unique copies in there. If these were expert archivists a lot of damage could be prevented, but given the malice and indifference of AI companies, there very likely will not be an expert archivist involved, and unique copies will be destroyed unceremoniously.

My personal wastebook at home is so rare, it's unique. That doesn't mean it needs preservation.

Your what now? Made from your personal waste? That does sound unique.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wastebook

Oh right. But anyway, nobody knows what needs preservation, it's a basic problem of life, somebody usually mentions the BBC throwing out boring old Doctor Who tapes to save archive space because nobody liked it any more at that point in time. Some things should probably be thrown out now and then, I suppose.

Re: AI companies destroy physical books – let's scan rare books before it's too late

#65
Google Books was a great resource until the lawyers got involved. I was able to find and download (one screenshot at a time) a rare family history. The author died 100 years ago. The published disappeared 80 years ago. But now Google has locked it behind a limited preview.

Google probably has the best collection of high quality scans, followed by the Hathi Trust. None of which are useable by anyone outside of those systems.

Re: AI companies destroy physical books – let's scan rare books before it's too late

#66
What evidence do we have that they are "destroying" books?

I'm not saying this in their defense, but as someone who has worked at companies who has scanned books at scale, and generally speaking, I wasn't on site there, but I knew we/they were pretty delicate with the books. And while the kneejerk reaction might be "hey, why would they go through the effort?" -- my guess is that they are following or even hiring people that have done this process in the past (out of laziness) and just follow what works easiest. The literal machinery is not designed to destroy the books for various practical reasons. Books that are bound are easier to be kept in order and work with. Getting a flat scan is done with specialized tools, you don't need to put it on a plate (it would be too slow that way anyway)

All of the above is just to justify my question: Who knows that the books are being destroyed? (I also agree with the general sentiment that there's a good chance these books are just cheap and bulk, they aren't pulling one of a kind rare books.)

Re: AI companies destroy physical books – let's scan rare books before it's too late

#69
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The articles I've read on this are not clear, but I strongly suspect "rare" is not the definition you and I probably use for the level of rarity of books actually being destroyed. These are not going to be the kinds of books "The Ninth Gate" resolved around - truly one of a kind. It's not good they are destroying books, but they are books which do have other copies. Just perhaps not many.

Also, a lot of these "rare books" are stuff like TV programming magazines from October 1994.

So, have you tried finding out what the programming was in October 1994? Or what cultural ephemera appeared in the TV guides of that era alongside the schedules? Either there's a copy for the week you want in an archive, or somebody's got one for sale, or most often neither. This can piss you off, if as it happened you had a reason to care.

Re: AI companies destroy physical books – let's scan rare books before it's too late

#70

What evidence do we have that they are "destroying" books? I'm not saying this in their defense, but as someone who has worked at companies who has scanned books at scale, and generally speaking, I wasn't on site there, but I knew we/they were pretty delicate with the books. And while the kneejerk reaction might be "hey, why would they go through the effort?" -- my guess is that they are following or even hiring peop…

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