this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2026

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586

Amazon Caught Destroying Rare Books to Train AI (futurism.com)

submitted 21 hours ago by zarkanian@sh.itjust.works to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] PennyRoyal@sh.itjust.works 8 points 21 hours ago

So Amazon should be destroyed to train humans?

[–] CanIFishHere@lemmy.ca 2 points 17 hours ago (3 children)

This is a weird one. If I buy a book, rare or not, do I not own it?

[–] yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (2 children)

Buying food in order to destroy it is bad.
Buying art in order to destroy it, also bad.

Ownership itself is a pragmatic social construct: you “own” things insofar as that “makes sense.”

Does it make sense for Amazon to own rare books? Not really. I’m not sure why that would be allowed. It’s like a child owning a rocket. It simply makes no sense in most contexts.

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[–] ayyy@sh.itjust.works 1 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

If you buy a house, it is illegal to set it on fire. It is also illegal to pump infinite molten lead into the soil under your house. It is also illegal to spray aerosolized asbestos out of the chimney of your house 24/7.

You still own the house.

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[–] lepinkainen@lemmy.world -1 points 21 hours ago (3 children)

Rare doesn’t automatically imply valuable, useful or anything like that.

My Anthony Fauci x Drowsy Don fanfic is “rare”, but nobody including me would bat an eye if it was destroyed.

[–] zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 4 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (1 children)

These books were purchased from booksellers. Booksellers don't typically carry books that won't sell. That's why it's unlikely these are somebody's fanfics printed on CreateSpace or something like that.

[–] imrighthere@lemmy.ca 1 points 21 hours ago

Rare doesn’t automatically imply valuable

I agree, there is only one of you, and you're worthless.

[–] JustDorky@lemmy.world 0 points 20 hours ago

You're so smart and well informed, thanks for sharing those sources and details that provide that context. Awesome work!

[+] sudo@lemmy.today -7 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (13 children)

Obviously this isn't ideal, and fuck the massive amounts of destruction (environmental, economical, societal) of AI, but these stories amount to 'book owner does what they want with books they own'.

I don't disagree with any of these responses, and I'm not saying reporting on this to make people aware of it is bad or pointless.

So now what do we do about it?

[–] XLE@piefed.social 6 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

The article is evidence that the books were sold under false pretense.

[–] joe@lemmy.world 1 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

I read the article and don't see what you're seeing. Can you point out the "false pretenses". It seems the order was placed via a site that intentionally allows anonymous purchases.

As a sidebar:

a bookseller suspected that an order they received for 1,000 books on Biblio, a marketplace where buyers can remain anonymous, was for an AI company. So to get to the bottom of the mystery, they agreed to place an Apple AirTag between the pages of one of the volumes.

Emphasis mine.

That seems sketchy to me. I'm not confident it's illegal, but I'm guessing a website that intentionally allows anonymous purchases isn't going to take kindly to a vendor putting a tracking device in an order.

[–] XLE@piefed.social -2 points 11 hours ago (4 children)

Oh no. Won't somebody think of the billionaire whose monopoly that got exposed by some independent journalists who couldn't be bought or bribed. How tragic.

If Amazon is behaving ethically, they don't need to hide what they're doing.

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[–] fluxx@mander.xyz 5 points 21 hours ago

Yeah, you know that episode where Homer does pranks for Mr Burns and goes in and buys a no 1 spiderman from the comic book guy and eats it in front of him. That's how most people feel about book destruction. Nothing legally wrong, but disgusting nonetheless.

[–] rockSlayer@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 21 hours ago

When a person purchases something, it's that person's personal property. When a corporation purchases something, it's that capitalist's private property.

A true analysis of this type of headline would be more along the lines of "capitalist uses capitalism to encircle and entrench their capital at the expense of human culture and society"

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