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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

#951

Post by alerighi »

HeWhoLurksLate wrote: post #325
alerighi wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but let's continue using Claude to write code because we suck at programming. Really the only way out of this is to STOP NOW using AI and use our brain instead. These company will just shut down if we stop using, and thus paying, for their services. Come on, we did without AI for all our history, we could live without it with no issue (as to me we could live without smartphones, internet, etc if we want).

we also did without air conditioning, plumbing, democracy, and human rights for millenia, and I wouldn't want to give any of those up

I wouldn't even compare AI to any of one. Rather, AI will even contrast with some of these, democracy for example, if we stop critically thinking and delegate everything to AI (= big corporations that control it) it cannot end well to me. Same thing if we continue building datacenters that generate tons of CO2 for doing stuff we can do with well, our brain (that is the most energy efficient computer on earth!) or even better not do at all (because we don't need AI slop), air conditioning will not be enough I fear.

Computers and computer programs did work much more reliably when they were written by humans, a modern computer system written mostly with AI has bugs that not even in systems that were in use in the 80s (and some of them are even still in service today!) had.

Do you want a planet where the human being is at the center, or the machine? Do you think machines has to be at your service, that you are the one ordering it what to do (that is programming it), or you think you are to be a servant of an AI that takes all the decision for you? Because if you think the second, you want MATRIX or SKYNET, well I don't want MATRIX or SKYNET to be fair (not that it's even possible btw, since AI has anything intelligent in it beside the name, it's just a glorious copy/paste machine).

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

#952

Post by jhbadger »

ktm5j wrote: post #946
jhbadger wrote: post #927

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Nobody has the space. Libraries, public, university, and private regularly "weed" their collections for things they view as outdated or just unpopular. If they didn't, they'd have no space for new books.

Do you really think AI companies are seeking out outdated/unpopular books to train their models on?

Yes. That's the only sort of "rare book" that makes sense in context to train on. There's no point in destroying an actually valuable rare book like a first edition of the Origin of Species because those are available cheaply in reprints.

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

#953

Post by NishanStepak »

NishanStepak wrote: post #725

Nondestructive scanning can cost 10x as much. This is about cost. It is not about preservation. Google never destroyed the books it scanned. Amazon and Anthropic are attempting to save money. They are not considering whether or not a book is rare. They are treating books as a commodity. Rare books are rare. It is easy enough to identify when there are a limited number of copies of a book. The issue is saving money on…

I have been reading more about exactly what is happening. There is an indication that the scanning and destruction of books can destroy the last copy of books that are rare. This way the information only exists in digital form inside the large language model. This claim is increasingly appearing in news articles. It is an interesting observation that needs additional confirmation. This can alter the permanent record in unexpected ways. https://dallasexpress.com/national/the-vanishing-page-ai-fir...

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

#954

Post by MollyRealized »

I scanned my grandmother's books - mainly autobiographical, she was a medical missionary in China and India, and children's - for this very reason. She had five children, who all had families, grandfamilies, and in some cases great-grandfamilies, meaning that copies of her books became rare.

As silly as it sounded, as a child who grew up with Trek and TNG, I wanted some far-flung descendant to be able to generate her in a hologram, and to read her words.

As such, I made the decision to destroy my own copies of her books so that they could be scanned for this purpose and stored on the Internet Archive. It was the only practical method at that time. But it would be wonderful if somehow technology advanced quickly in this area so that it was easier to scan books non-destructively.

(The one issue I find dissatisfying about the process is that I could not substitute my own OCR of her work (some done, more planned) for the Archive's often substandard automated OCR. No disrespect to the Archive by this, and hopefully at some point they will re-scan with better software..)

In case anyone would like to check them out: https://archive.org/details/@mollyrealized/uploads

(A warning for those who do: my grandmother describes people as small - her Chinese cook and her Indian patients (she was a nurse), yes, but also her own daughter, her husband, and an upstate New York appliance salesman who calls her a pretty little woman. Applied to an elderly Chinese woman it carries a weight it doesn't carry applied to an American one. She also uses "coolie," ordinary in the 1930s and not now. Overall her writing, and the work it records, shows an ongoing desire to be warm to, to respect, and to understand people who weren't American. She and my grandfather went out to build and upgrade hospitals. They helped first and preached to those who wanted to hear it. As her grandchild, I believe I can accurately say that love and respect were what was in her heart.)

My grandparents were Americans in China during the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War. My grandfather was shot at by an inebriated Japanese soldier. If the gun hadn't jammed twice in a row, you wouldn't be speaking to me.

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

#955

Post by Mudbugs »

areoform wrote: post #633
Mudbugs wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, this feels pretty much it. Looking at the "rare books", it was books that nobody would care about or would just rot away anyway. (The example book of Old books of agriculture is probably not that important today) Liberians have to accept that much of their job is sending books to be burned. A lot of them try their best to get people to be interested in older books, but they have to make way for "newer" books ins…

> The example book of Old books of agriculture is probably not that important today If I may be flippant, not to you but to the sentiment, skill issue. We're about to enter an era of climate instability that's going to cause wild fluctuations in the ability to grow food across the globe. Historical agriculture data AND data about confounds is crucial for figuring out what strains outside of our current mostly mono-st…

"No-kill shelters" are very rare and very controversial (thanks to PETA); most still have to kill by law (overpopulation), and they instead tend to focus on not taking in more than they can handle. They are very controversial because they are more of a "moral" than a "practical" solution to animal overpopulation. They try their best to let animals have their "normal natural life to the end". They are just more focused on the animals' well-being, kind of like a library for books, but they still have to kill if they overpopulate.

The main article is written like it is the "end of the world", just like your random rambling about "climate instability" is just the natural course Earth has been on for its existence, with melting ice.

Random article about powder and stone, completely irrelevant.

The old book mentioned was just a farmer's book; you can find all this history in the area's historical records.

"Skill issue." How old are you? I think it would help you more if you contacted a shelter and talked about what they really do.

Better sources than Wikipedia that explain what they do; it is, of course, different from shelter to shelter, but euthanising due to overpopulation is still part of it. (Like too many books in a library, they need to make room for other books that people want, if it just end up roting on the shelf and nobody loans it over years, either destruction or storage, most don't have space for storage)

https://bestfriends.org/stories/best-friends-magazine/debate...

https://lifelineanimal.org/the-no-kill-controversy/

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

#956

Post by shagie »

NishanStepak wrote: post #953
NishanStepak wrote: post #725

Nondestructive scanning can cost 10x as much. This is about cost. It is not about preservation. Google never destroyed the books it scanned. Amazon and Anthropic are attempting to save money. They are not considering whether or not a book is rare. They are treating books as a commodity. Rare books are rare. It is easy enough to identify when there are a limited number of copies of a book. The issue is saving money on…

I have been reading more about exactly what is happening. There is an indication that the scanning and destruction of books can destroy the last copy of books that are rare. This way the information only exists in digital form inside the large language model. This claim is increasingly appearing in news articles. It is an interesting observation that needs additional confirmation. This can alter the permanent record…

> There is an indication that the scanning and destruction of books can destroy the last copy of books that are rare.

Every book that has been published in the United States has a copy in the Library of Congress.

Neutron Radiography: Proceedings of the First World Conference San Diego, California, U.S.A. December 7–10, 1981 is a rare book - there's only one copy available from used book sellers on Amazon.

There is a copy of it in the Library of Congress. https://search.catalog.loc.gov/instances/b220c9bd-63ad-5a8b-... . You can go to the Science and Business reading room and request it so you can read it. https://www.loc.gov/research-centers/science-and-business/ab...

For any book that has been published, you can do this. It might not be in the United States if it wasn't published here... it would be in other national libraries (Tom Scott This library has every book ever published. https://youtu.be/ZNVuIU6UUiM )

Chasing links from the article you linked gives examples. https://nltimes.nl/2026/06/25/rare-book-dealers-fear-tech-fi...

    “We have compiled a very extensive list of editions that we are currently trying to acquire, and we plan to place a fairly large order. The list is attached,” the email said.

    The attachment contained 3,000 English-language titles organized by ISBN number, including books such as Distinct Element Modelling in Geomechanics by K.R. Saxena (1999); Barrett's Traditional Fairy Tales (2021), an academic study of Irish folklore; and Laser Shock Peening of Advanced Ceramics by Pratik Shukla (2018).
Some of these are from other countries. For example, Barrett's Traditional Fairy Tales is from Ireland. https://catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000896773/StaffViewMARC

The last copy of a book is not destroyed.

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

#957

Post by freejazz »

parineum wrote: post #949
freejazz wrote: post #930

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was no judgment against them, it was a settlement and against only Anthropic. They asked their attorneys and they knew it was wrong. I have no sympathy for them. It's an insane kind of hubris to do what they did, thinking it would change the world, and that no one would notice what they did. So I don't even really agree with your characterization, as they were convinced what they were doing was a risk worth tak…

You're making a lot more assumptions on the inner workings of other people's minds than I am. I lot of startups do a lot of shady things before they get big because most of them just flounder out. The ones that make it just deal with those problems later. Then, if they make it, they deal with those problems later. Look at Uber, AirBnB, all of these scooter companies, etc. They all just do the thing and deal with it l…

>You're making a lot more assumptions on the inner workings of other people's minds than I am.

Am I? It's not when its what they publish. Suddenly everyone at Anthropic isn't a believer when it came to their decision that resulted in a 1.5B settlement... But the rest of the time? Oh, well, there the most serious folk out there.

>They all just do the thing and deal with it later. "Move fast and break things" includes laws.

Okay, and? So these other companies aren't knowingly breaking the law? They are. That's exactly what "move fast and break things means"

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

#958

Post by asdefghyk »

jeroenhd wrote: post #308
drtgh wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do not need to shred books to scan them. This only happens if you don't care about preserving the integrity of the books and you want to scan more cheaply.

But their legal framework for being permitted to scan the books en masse (they are "transforming" the book from physical to digital) requires destruction of the original. Otherwise it wouldn't be transforming, it would be duplicating.

OK that action allows them to do the transformation.

But how about the importing into the AI tool?

Does this "transformation" somehow override the authors complaints of AI taking their book and not compensating the authors for its mass usage in the AI tool.

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

#959

Post by NishanStepak »

shagie wrote: post #956
NishanStepak wrote: post #953

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been reading more about exactly what is happening. There is an indication that the scanning and destruction of books can destroy the last copy of books that are rare. This way the information only exists in digital form inside the large language model. This claim is increasingly appearing in news articles. It is an interesting observation that needs additional confirmation. This can alter the permanent record…

> There is an indication that the scanning and destruction of books can destroy the last copy of books that are rare. Every book that has been published in the United States has a copy in the Library of Congress. Neutron Radiography: Proceedings of the First World Conference San Diego, California, U.S.A. December 7–10, 1981 is a rare book - there's only one copy available from used book sellers on Amazon. There is a…

The library of congress is selective and does not have copies of every book ever written. They are quite clear about this in their selection process. This is a myth which sounds right, but is not accurate. They could not afford this, nor does it make practical sense. https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9709/acquire.html

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

#960

Post by NishanStepak »

NishanStepak wrote: post #953
NishanStepak wrote: post #725

Nondestructive scanning can cost 10x as much. This is about cost. It is not about preservation. Google never destroyed the books it scanned. Amazon and Anthropic are attempting to save money. They are not considering whether or not a book is rare. They are treating books as a commodity. Rare books are rare. It is easy enough to identify when there are a limited number of copies of a book. The issue is saving money on…

I have been reading more about exactly what is happening. There is an indication that the scanning and destruction of books can destroy the last copy of books that are rare. This way the information only exists in digital form inside the large language model. This claim is increasingly appearing in news articles. It is an interesting observation that needs additional confirmation. This can alter the permanent record…

This is a more recent article on the process from 404 Media. It is inside teh Amazon facility. https://www.404media.co/inside-the-warehouse-where-amazon-sc...
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