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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[–] whereitsat@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

doubt many 'of the most valuable' books haven't been digitized or aren't available on amazon or ebay for a pittance. when i need to find something on anna's archive, it's usually because it's some bullshit, tween pulp romance novel from the late 70's.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 2 points 1 day ago

There's a lot of incredibly old books that can't even be opened to be read without damaging them; but those are already locked up in museums and shit for study and preservation.