this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2026

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516

AI companies are now destroying warehouses full of rare books (gardinerbryant.com)

submitted 2 days ago by PerfectDark@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

Just another reminder in a planetary history of reminders of why our species fucking sucks.

[–] csolisr@hub.azkware.net 1 points 2 days ago

❌ Destroying the books
✔️ ...to fully digitize them
❌ ...and hoard the data in their systems

How do they manage to screw things twice in a row?

[–] Modern_medicine_isnt@lemmy.world -2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

If they were truely "rare" books, then the owner wouldn't have sold it to an AI company. People who collect rare books are usually very choosy about who they sell them to. Now I don't like them destroying books in general, but I suspect the word rare in this article is likely not what most people would actually call rare.

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[–] AuthenticSchedule@lemmus.org -3 points 2 days ago

Literally this is the Library of Alexandria

[+] ExFed@programming.dev -9 points 2 days ago (2 children)

This is probably going to be an unpopular comment... but these articles are all super misleading. The physical books are getting destroyed, but their content is getting digitized. Is that a loss? Absolutely. But is there a benefit? Also yes.

The biggest loss is probably the fact that destroying the physical books removes them from circulation, making them essentially permanent additions to these companies' book collections.

[–] Bob_Robertson_IX@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The biggest loss is probably the fact that destroying the physical books removes them from circulation

And these are books that have been sitting in warehouses that haven't been able to be sold because no one wanted them. They were removed from circulation long ago.

[–] Senal@programming.dev 0 points 2 days ago (1 children)

They aren't in current circulation, not the same thing.

Not arguing that they are useful, just that sitting in a warehouse and physical destruction aren't equivalent in terms of potential use.

[–] Bob_Robertson_IX@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That's true, but sitting in a warehouse is costing someone money and I'm sure they were more than happy to sell the books even if they knew they'd eventually get destroyed.

But the other thing is, what should these companies do instead? They scraped the internet and got skewered for that. They pirated books and got in trouble for that. Now they are legally purchasing books to scan. They can't donate or sell the books since they've effectively copied the book and that would get them into piracy trouble again.

[–] Senal@programming.dev 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That's true, but sitting in a warehouse is costing someone money and I'm sure they were more than happy to sell the books even if they knew they'd eventually get destroyed.

Sure, thats a possibility, I wasnt arguing otherwise.

But the other thing is, what should these companies do instead? They scraped the internet and got skewered for that. They pirated books and got in trouble for that. Now they are legally purchasing books to scan.

For me, them doing sketchy and illegal shit, mostly getting away with it and then charging you for access to said ill-gotten gains is a valid reason for people to be upset at them, rage inducing, even.

That aside the equivalent of mass book burning isn't a good look regardless of legality, even less so when its the same people that did the sketchy shit before.

There is no benefit of the doubt left.

I can see how someone could get to:

"all they do is sketchy shit so even though this might look legit, let's vocally show our disdain for them and anything they are doing"

[–] Bob_Robertson_IX@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

So... back to my question: what should they do instead?

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[–] Eyekaytee@aussie.zone -2 points 2 days ago

DAMNIT

The original article was on the australian news corp website, so it's probably not true and/or exaggerated but anyway

ha ha ai bad

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