this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2026
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AI labs buy, scan, shred millions of rare books (www.news.com.au)
submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by themachinestops@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Artificial intelligence labs are in a new arms race to buy up millions of rare books, slicing them open, scanning the pages and pulping the remains — sparking concerns that the last remaining copies of out-of-print texts are being destroyed on an industrial scale.

ISBNdb notes that “print books from the pre-LLM era are structurally guaranteed to be free of this contamination”.

“Millions of the most valuable books have never been digitised. They exist only in physical form, scattered across library shelves, used bookstores, and out-of-print catalogues. We get them to you at scale.”

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[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world -1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

i have a rare first edition that i absolutely treasure. single run, too. it’s a local therapist’s little comic book he drew.

Cool, I guess. How many of these did the AI company destroy?

My niece wrote a ten page short story, had it bound, and added it to her school's library - a project every kid in her grade level did. If she doesn't claim it before she graduates, it goes into an archive. And eventually on to a dump.

if someone took my copy and pulped it

If they snuck into your room at night, sure. If they walked off with it from a yard sale, idk if you get to complain.

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago

Okay, now consider my nonexistent idiot sister (my sisters are all cool as fuck) stole my copy, how family does. And I ran the first search in a decade for this book, and the rare bookshop that got pulped last week has (had) the only other extant copy. And then my nonexistent idiot sister died in a fire with my book. See why I might be mad at this straw man?