AI companies destroy rare and non recoverable physical books • Hacker News Board

Re: AI companies destroy rare and non recoverable physical books

#81

Post by pfdietz » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 11:39 AM UTC

qsera wrote: post #76

pfdietz wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When your justification for your idea is that everyone else is stupid, maybe you need to reevaluate who is being stupid.

I didn't say everyone else is stupid. I said (or meant) consumers show largely/collectively stupid behavior that I described.

Just most people. Your quibble doesn't save you.

Why should anyone take your personal idiosyncratic definition of value seriously, especially when it leads to absurd consequences? The simplest explanation here is that you have just not expended the effort to think things through.

Re: AI companies destroy rare and non recoverable physical books

#82

Post by Eddy_Viscosity2 » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 1:30 PM UTC

qsera wrote: post #47

Legend2440 wrote: post #4

Who says they're rare and nonrecoverable? If they're bought in bulk from used booksellers, they're probably quite common titles. We throw away nearly a billion books every year. They're not sacred, and scanning a few million isn't a tragedy. People just don't like AI and want to be outraged about it.

>they're probably quite common titles. Old books could have been common back in their day, but they might not be very common today.

For model train sets, its often the cheapest most common ones that become the most valuable decades later. The expensive sets were cared for and so many survived, but the cheap ones were played with and tossed into the bin and then few survive in good condition. So because something was once common does not mean it can't become rare later on.

Re: AI companies destroy rare and non recoverable physical books

#83

Post by dekhn » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 3:12 PM UTC

qsera wrote: post #80

WithinReason wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reread what he wrote

Yea, and I don't think I missed something. To be clear, I don't want the "knowledge in the book", I want the content of the book itself so that I can form my own knowledge. So don't not want an LLMs regurgitation of the book... And what about fiction? I don't want an LLM's "interpretation", I want the real thing. Is that made available somewhere?

You are not being prevented from accessing another copy of the book to get that knowledge.

Re: AI companies destroy rare and non recoverable physical books

#84

Post by qsera » Sat, Aug 01, 2026, 6:05 PM UTC

pfdietz wrote: post #81

qsera wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say everyone else is stupid. I said (or meant) consumers show largely/collectively stupid behavior that I described.

Just most people. Your quibble doesn't save you. Why should anyone take your personal idiosyncratic definition of value seriously, especially when it leads to absurd consequences? The simplest explanation here is that you have just not expended the effort to think things through.

> Why should anyone take your personal idiosyncratic definition of value seriously...

so that they get more value out of their $$$...or else feel free to part all your cash on the newest piece of shit. I don't really care. An idiot and his money is soon parted. Tale as old as time. Suit yourselves...

Re: AI companies destroy rare and non recoverable physical books

#85

Post by basisword » Sun, Aug 02, 2026, 9:32 AM UTC

Legend2440 wrote: post #57

basisword wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do have the option to not destroy the books. Their hand isn’t being forced. You can choose not to be scumbags just as you can choose to use a legal loophole to rip off writers, destroy books needlessly and resell their content through your service.

This benefits me personally by having the information in the books freely available through the AI, which anyone can use. I'm all for it.

It would benefit me personally to take whatever I need from the grocery store without paying. I don't do that though.

Re: AI companies destroy rare and non recoverable physical books

#86

Post by tpoacher » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 5:53 AM UTC

dekhn wrote: post #83

qsera wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, and I don't think I missed something. To be clear, I don't want the "knowledge in the book", I want the content of the book itself so that I can form my own knowledge. So don't not want an LLMs regurgitation of the book... And what about fiction? I don't want an LLM's "interpretation", I want the real thing. Is that made available somewhere?

You are not being prevented from accessing another copy of the book to get that knowledge.

> You are not being prevented from accessing another copy of the book to get that knowledge.

Except in the (potentually rare) situation that a book is rare, which brings us back into full circle in the discussion.

So, ragebait article or not, we have identified an issue if reasonable importance.

E.g. if there was an official statement that non-destructive scanning were to be used in titles with less than X copies in circulation,I would feel more comfortable.

Re: AI companies destroy rare and non recoverable physical books

#87

Post by tpoacher » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 6:07 AM UTC

Legend2440 wrote: post #64

tpoacher wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read it again. These aren't books that were bought in bulk bt bookstores. They're rare books that are bought in bulk for scanning. The analogy is imagine someone buying near-extinct animals from any source in bulk, not kittens from average pet shops.

>They're rare books that are bought in bulk for scanning. Nope! Actually this article has a list of the books they were scanning: https://fortune.com/2026/07/31/dutch-bookseller-ai-spam-phis... >provided Fortune with the email and subsequent spreadsheet containing 3,001 titles, mostly published between 2020 and 2021 by academic publishers like Emerald Publishing, Elsevier, Wiley, Routledge and Oxford University Press…

I see. That's good to know, though you could have led with that! I was mostly calling you out because it seemed you were misrepresenting the article's argument, whereas you now seem to have no problem with their reasoning of bulk destruction, but simply question the premise of whether the books are indeed rare in the first place.

I have to say though, while I'm relieved we're not destroying in bulk books from the 1900s, nevertheless, just because a book is from the 2020s doesn't necessarily make it a plentiful resource (I've often been in a situation where fairly recent textbooks I wanted are out of print and are only sold in old bookshops, or for exorbitant prices on ebay, for instance). So ragebait quality article or not, I still acknowledge the issue.

As I said to another person above, I would still feel more comfortable after this discussion, if the company had made a statement that non-destructive scanning methods will be pursued in books with less than X books in circulation.

Re: AI companies destroy rare and non recoverable physical books

#88

Post by dekhn » Tue, Aug 04, 2026, 10:05 PM UTC

tpoacher wrote: post #86

dekhn wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not being prevented from accessing another copy of the book to get that knowledge.

> You are not being prevented from accessing another copy of the book to get that knowledge. Except in the (potentually rare) situation that a book is rare, which brings us back into full circle in the discussion. So, ragebait article or not, we have identified an issue if reasonable importance. E.g. if there was an official statement that non-destructive scanning were to be used in titles with less than X copies in…

The clear conclusion from all the articles I've read is that no truly rare books are being destroyed in this process. That is an intentional technique used by the article authors to manipulate readers into being outraged.