this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2026
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It would be slightly less horrrible if they released the digitized books online, or even just paid archivist organizations to carefully do the job for them and make public the works to then train on.
But no. They choose the worst way to do everything.
Welcome to capitalism...
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/12/11/china-burning-book-censorship-online-outrage/
Welcome to humanity
Except this is different. That book burning was due to ideological reasons. This one is due to pure greed and disregard for collective knowledge
Even really evil people respect knowledge.
These aren't people.
You're right, it is different, the AI companies are misled into thinking this will generate some sort of profit but the Chinese were just doing it from a place of pure malice.
Putting the slightest chance of profits over the conservation of rare books is also pure malice in my book. With a layer of makeup.
And worse if you do it to benefit humanity (see: internet archive) they'll sue you into oblivion or come for your neck. Even mobsters benefited their communities somewhat while doing heinous things.