World's largest open library calls for volunteers to scan and preserve physical books as AI companies buy, scan, and destroy them — Anna's Archive says ‘time is running out’ as ‘knowledge is permanently monopolized on private servers’
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As AI tech companies increasingly buy and destroy books to feed to their AI models, Anna's Archive is calling for volunteers to help preserve them for the public record.

As AI tech companies increasingly buy and destroy books to feed to their AI models, Anna’s Archive is calling for volunteers to help preserve them for the public record.

  • Mordikan@kbin.earth
    01·
    2 months ago

    If you can purchase a book at a bookstore, then it can be assumed there are sufficient copies in production. They aren’t buying rare books here.

      • Mordikan@kbin.earth
        01·
        2 months ago

        So there have been a bunch of articles about this lately. They play loose with descriptions in their titles. Here is one example: https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/ai-companies-destroying-rare-books

        “Antique books”. One, notice they don’t mention any actual title or ISBN? Two, these are bought through a book reseller (like Book Depot or ThriftBooks), meaning that “antique” just means “used”.

        In my personal library collection I have new books, I have used books, and I have rare books. These are not the same thing.