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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

#391

Post by radu_floricica »

nloomans wrote: post #383
cladopa wrote: post #343

It is not a big deal. Since the invention of the printing press any important book has been duplicated by thousands, tens of thousands or even million of units. Just taking one of those and "destroying them"(it is not destroyed, a digital copy with the ability of doing millions of copies is stored somewhere) is not problematic for Humanity. By the way, I always search for second hand books. Most of the books there ar…

> a digital copy with the ability of doing millions of copies is stored somewhere somewhere were we can't access it. as the article states: “permanently locking human knowledge inside private corporate servers” the issue isn't that the physical copy is gone, it's that they are preventing people from making digital copies that are actually accessible by destroying the physical copies. > If you go to a recycling centre…

> somewhere were we can't access it

By any metric imaginable, it's making the information more accessible, not less. First, it's taking a single copy of a 10k physical print and it's making it digital. Is it "locked"? Yes, by copyright laws, if you don't like that lobby to have them changed. But it's _closer_ to being widely available, not farther.

Plus having the info part of a LLM makes it immediately available to literally billions.

I happen to actually actively shop second hand bookstores, so I am potentially affected by this - as opposed to most people complaining because they don't like the idea. And I still absolutely support it.

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

#392

Post by maxlin »

It is quite disappointing to see them not using the type of machines that don't actually destroy the books, like, afaik, Internet Archive is using.

Using a few gas generators for a transitional period isn't great either, but effect of those is very temporary. I fear permanence in this individual deal with the devil made for speed and cost.

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

#393

Post by shevy-java »

But scanning the books also helps those AI companies because ultimately they want more data. Yes, they also destroy rare books to sabotage competitors, and thus also damage global society - a reason why these evil companies should be disbanded - but the article seems to not put any thoughts into things here, other than the superficial "they destroy books".

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

#395

Post by rvz »

cladopa wrote: post #343

It is not a big deal. Since the invention of the printing press any important book has been duplicated by thousands, tens of thousands or even million of units. Just taking one of those and "destroying them"(it is not destroyed, a digital copy with the ability of doing millions of copies is stored somewhere) is not problematic for Humanity. By the way, I always search for second hand books. Most of the books there ar…

First of all, it IS destroyed and it is a big deal. Hardcover copies of books especially 1st - 2nd edition ones (even with mistakes) are rarer than digital scans.

Maybe the Bodleian Library at Oxford University should give all their rare books to AI companies to scan and destroy them since it is not a "big deal" anyway.

Except that when they did do a pilot with OpenAI to scan these rare books, [0] they did NOT destroy them. I wonder why?

[0] https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/services/research-partnerships...

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

#396

Post by tsukikage »

JohnFen wrote: post #323
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #313

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.

> turning it into a digital copy. Are they? Or are they just using it for training and not keeping the digital copy afterwards? And even if they are keeping a digital copy, does that actually matter if they never release it?

> Or are they just using it for training

You’re making a distinction here, but training is something you repeat for every new point release, so you need to keep the data if you want to use it for training.

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

#397

Post by dqv »

phoronixrly wrote: post #378
dqv wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other thing they could be doing is using some of that lobbying money to try to reform copyright law to allow them to release the scans that are still covered. It would likewise earn goodwill from a lot of people.

They could be, however that would weaken their position as the sole source of knowledge which seems to me is half the purpose of their book destroying initiative.

That's why the "but it's illegal" propaganda is so unconvincing for me. It's really "but it's illegal (and we want to keep it that way)".

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

#398

Post by shevy-java »

ziyadb wrote: post #299

I was surprised to read that Anthropic (and probably other data / model companies) are doing this and it's extremely disappointing, as working towards the benefit of humanity is not an exclusive right / domain of theirs but rather, is a shared responsibility and mission carried by all of humanity itself as a collective responsibility. Thus, the preservation of this knowledge, its availability, and accessibility are t…

> From a historical precedent standpoint, this is akin to the burning of the library of Alexandria

Let's view it realistically here: AI companies are parasites. Them destroying books to dumb down mankind, absolutely fits into the destruction of the library of Alexandria.

Having said that, I think the day of physical hardcopy of books, is not necessarily over, but will be heavily complemented via digital storage. For instance I only keep books that I may re-read later or read many more times, e. g. thick science books. Many other books I can keep as .pdf file without a problem.

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

#399

Post by gnfargbl »

nloomans wrote: post #383
cladopa wrote: post #343

It is not a big deal. Since the invention of the printing press any important book has been duplicated by thousands, tens of thousands or even million of units. Just taking one of those and "destroying them"(it is not destroyed, a digital copy with the ability of doing millions of copies is stored somewhere) is not problematic for Humanity. By the way, I always search for second hand books. Most of the books there ar…

> a digital copy with the ability of doing millions of copies is stored somewhere somewhere were we can't access it. as the article states: “permanently locking human knowledge inside private corporate servers” the issue isn't that the physical copy is gone, it's that they are preventing people from making digital copies that are actually accessible by destroying the physical copies. > If you go to a recycling centre…

> permanently locking human knowledge inside private corporate servers

History tells us that very few "permanent" situations are truly permanent.

Provided a set of information has value (which in this case it clearly does) then the overwhelming likelihood is that, eventually, through some method or other, the information will become public.

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

#400

Post by Aurornis »

ziyadb wrote: post #299

I was surprised to read that Anthropic (and probably other data / model companies) are doing this and it's extremely disappointing, as working towards the benefit of humanity is not an exclusive right / domain of theirs but rather, is a shared responsibility and mission carried by all of humanity itself as a collective responsibility. Thus, the preservation of this knowledge, its availability, and accessibility are t…

> From a historical precedent standpoint, this is akin to the burning of the library of Alexandria,

These comparisons are starting to get ridiculous. Why are so many people assuming there is exactly one copy of all of these important books available, that it’s sitting in the warehouse of a bulk book reseller, and that Anthropic is destroying the lone copy?

Your local library throws out books every year and nobody thought twice about it.

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