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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

#311

Post by ab71e5 »

eulgro wrote: post #291

We've been seeing that headline for a few weeks now and I really don't understand the problem. Companies are paying for the books now, great! And destroying a book is really the best way to scan it. I could destroy the books I buy myself if I wanted, they're my books and I can do whatever I want with them. A book is really just a stack of paper, I don't get the sacred feeling attached to it. Especially since books ar…

It is also legal to buy potatoes and burn them, nobody would care if I do it. But if I buy up a food supply enough to feed a country and burn it it would be wrong.

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

#312

Post by Filligree »

ZoomZoomZoom wrote: post #297

The main question is why aren't they leaking it to AA themselves? Trying to keep an edge with their training sets? Isn't it ridiculous, considering the sheer size of them and statistical insignificance of the set differences?

Because that’s illegal.

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

#313

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

What often gets missed is that they are buy one physical copy and turning it into a digital copy.

They have done zero to destroy the durability. In fact, it’s probably more durable.

If the physical copies are scarce, that is due to the publisher and copyright laws and not them buying and converting a single copy.

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

#315

Post by pmoriarty »

Because of copyright issues, countless books between around the 1930s until about 2000 were never digitized.

After around 2000 books started coming out in digital format, so at least there are digital copies of many of those, even if they are still under copyright.

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

#316

Post by Filligree »

voidhorse wrote: post #289
warkdarrior wrote: post #283

> Our ideal is to scan and upload all the world’s publications before publishers completely block knowledge, and before AI companies scan and destroy all the world’s books and papers. Isn't this just doing the work for the AI companies??? Then the AI companies can simply download a copy of Anna's Archive.

Yeah, which is completely fine. There's a major difference between: A. Company destroys a book forever for training. Its scan is locked away forever in company records. In this case: - This information is locked away in the improvisations of an LLM. It is no longer possible to directly access the information as written by the human being that authored it. This constitutes the loss of literary history, or at least los…

B is illegal, and Anthropic ate a billion dollar fine for trying it, so you can’t even claim they don’t want to.

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

#317

Post by quietsegfault »

squidbeak wrote: post #304
eulgro wrote: post #291

We've been seeing that headline for a few weeks now and I really don't understand the problem. Companies are paying for the books now, great! And destroying a book is really the best way to scan it. I could destroy the books I buy myself if I wanted, they're my books and I can do whatever I want with them. A book is really just a stack of paper, I don't get the sacred feeling attached to it. Especially since books ar…

> A book is really just a stack of paper, I don't get the sacred feeling attached to it. Especially since books are printed in thousands to millions of identical copies. If you've read the articles covering this issue, you'll be aware the concern is over the fate of rare and out of print books, rather than your straw man (ie those available in 'thousands to millions' of copies). https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp3r…

Rare and out of print does not mean important or valuable.

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

#318

Post by quietsegfault »

ab71e5 wrote: post #311
eulgro wrote: post #291

We've been seeing that headline for a few weeks now and I really don't understand the problem. Companies are paying for the books now, great! And destroying a book is really the best way to scan it. I could destroy the books I buy myself if I wanted, they're my books and I can do whatever I want with them. A book is really just a stack of paper, I don't get the sacred feeling attached to it. Especially since books ar…

It is also legal to buy potatoes and burn them, nobody would care if I do it. But if I buy up a food supply enough to feed a country and burn it it would be wrong.

I’m confused - are you intending to say Anthropic and Google are buying ALL the books?

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

#319

Post by CamelCaseName »

You ask "Why destroy physical books?"

I ask "Why save physical books?"

If they are truly rare, then they are likely not valuable, otherwise there would be more copies or their contents could be found elsewhere.

Owning and storing physical books is not free, there is a real cost. Even owning and storing the scans is not free, especially when IP rights and challenges get involved, since a scanned book with no distribution is worthless.

I disagree with putting books on a pedestal and saying they must be protected. If they were any good, they would stand on their own, but if we have to run a moral crusade to save them, perhaps we are all better off if they're destroyed.

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