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’
www.tomshardware.com
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.

cross-posted from: https://kbin.earth/m/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com/t/3120649

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.

  • Test_Tickles@lemmy.worldEnglish
    221·
    16 hours ago

    They are literally searching for rare books, paying premium costs for them, then cutting off their spines because it is faster to scan them that way.
    Not only do they not need to destroy the books to scan them, but Google already did this 2 decades ago, and they did it non-destructively.

    • dil@lemmy.zipEnglish
      21·
      9 hours ago

      they arent paying extra, they are buying books planned for destruction anyways?

      • Test_Tickles@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        7 hours ago

        Independent bookstores all across Europe are seeing a trend like this, where they receive random, relatively large orders that are shipped to local addresses. While orders like these still come through in the digital age, especially from institutional buyers looking to fill out new libraries, they say that most “legitimate” orders often come with coordination and negotiation, not just a straight purchase order.

    • pseudo@jlai.luEnglish
      26·
      15 hours ago

      I just went on and read more article of the topics people shared in the comment. That’s sounds worrying indeed but my point is more that Annans Archive appeal is very abstract in a way that it présent something that doesn’t have to be a problem in a very sensationnalising manner instead of being clear about what is whappening and what we can do.