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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

#561

Post by Mudbugs »

smallerize wrote: post #539
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…

Well if you're appealing to librarians: "Hey, guys, when the librarians get pissed about the destruction of books, it’s time to put those listening ears on. Because we are very comfortable with the idea that books are tools that can be retired. What’s happening right now is not that...." https://bsky.app/profile/annabookwriter.bsky.social/post/3mt...

I don't get the point of this one. We not talking about "retiring books", we talking about "rare but still fine books".

I don't think many Liberians like the idea that they have to do it; it is just one of those things that has to be done, sadly.

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

#562

Post by smallerize »

Mudbugs wrote: post #561
smallerize wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well if you're appealing to librarians: "Hey, guys, when the librarians get pissed about the destruction of books, it’s time to put those listening ears on. Because we are very comfortable with the idea that books are tools that can be retired. What’s happening right now is not that...." https://bsky.app/profile/annabookwriter.bsky.social/post/3mt...

I don't get the point of this one. We not talking about "retiring books", we talking about "rare but still fine books". I don't think many Liberians like the idea that they have to do it; it is just one of those things that has to be done, sadly.

I don't think that changes the message at all. If a librarian doesn't like routine book destruction, they would still feel worse about this different thing that is happening.

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

#563

Post by JKCalhoun »

brookst wrote: post #454
raptor99 wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but you really do have to assume the worst about any of these "AI" companies, especially the large ones like ChatGPT and Anthropic. They literally lie, cheat and steal at any opportunity they have and in any way that they think of. Do not trust a single thing that they say; it is a fool's folly to do so. A lot of this can already be said about a lot of companies, especially almost…

Are you really advocating for assuming things with no evidence, by presenting no evidence for why one should do so? That’s not especially rigorous thinking.

It's likely more along the "fool me twice" category of wisdom. The opposite would instead be a kind of naive thinking.

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

#564

Post by wongarsu »

diseasedyak wrote: post #500
p-e-w wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s just another lie of the type these threads tend to be filled with nowadays. Of course they aren’t buying “all copies”, and that wouldn’t even be possible in most cases since such books are usually flea market/attic material and most copies aren’t for sale (or even catalogued) to begin with. I’d be interested to learn who comes up with such lies though. Is it really just random people venting their frustration, o…

It really does seem like an organized operation, given that it's so prevalent and they all seem to be in lockstep with their specious claims.

I wouldn't be surprised to find out that this outrage is fueled by the same actors as the AI data center water outrage. Whoever they are

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

#565

Post by svachalek »

mslt wrote: post #120
tptacek wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would make sense as an argument if the natural endpoint of these copies was preservation, and AI was disrupting that. But the natural next step for virtually all these books is to be recycled, not preserved. Books are generally not preserved . It is extremely normal for them to be pulped. Millions and millions of books are pulped every year.

Might as well grind up the tablet of complaint to Ea-nāṣir and make cement out it, right? What use could there be in preserving the mundane facets of everyday existence?

Preservation would be cool but what does that have to do with anything? The system is that the remaining copies have private owners and the private owners can do anything they want with them, including sell them or shred them.

Most of these owners aren't doing anything particular to preserve them, they're stacked up with 10,000 other TV Guides in a hoarder's moldy basement. Anyone interested in keeping October 1994's TV Guide pristine has had over 30 years to procure and protect their copy.

These particular buyers are converting their copy to a digital one that's getting some kind of use, which is better than the fate of 99.9% of the other copies.

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

#566

Post by JKCalhoun »

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

If you are suggesting that air conditioning, plumbing, democracy, and human rights are bad for society then I am missing the analogy.

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

#567

Post by mannyv »

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…

I have books, but they are just objects. They're nice objects, but just objects.

Fetishizing books isn't going to help.

In fact, most of those "rare" books don't sell because nobody wants them. The AI companies are making them even more rare, so the booksellers should be thankful.

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

#568

Post by joshstrange »

ionwake wrote: post #502

I mean guys i get it, you have a bad day just once and you want to rewrite history, we all do, but geez... I guess just I feel destroying books should be classed as unethical. if i was ruler I think id ban it.

Yes, let's begin with the trials for all the librarians who have destroyed/trashed books over the year!

Nevermind that they do that because those books aren't being borrowed and no one wants to buy them. Destroying books to destroy knowledge is bad, destroying books because no one wants them or there are ample copies, _especially_ when those books go on to live forever as a digital copy, is a completely different story.

It boggles my mind that of all places, here on HN, people can't understand that. The knowledge is not destroyed, only the physical vessel.

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

#569

Post by JKCalhoun »

jan_m_savage wrote: post #405
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…

They have already gotten to Archive.org. Books that were available to borrow are no longer 'available'. SMH

I've scraped all the stuff I am interested in. There's a whole r/datahoarders so I'm not alone. ;-)

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

#570

Post by parineum »

freejazz wrote: post #95
parineum wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are "forced" to do this because that's what they have to do to abide by copyright law. They can't create a digital duplicate without destroying the original.

If that's true, then why did they pirate so many books?

Because they hadn't been sued for pirating so many books yet.
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