this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2026
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AI labs buy, scan, shred millions of rare books (www.news.com.au)
submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) by themachinestops@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Artificial intelligence labs are in a new arms race to buy up millions of rare books, slicing them open, scanning the pages and pulping the remains — sparking concerns that the last remaining copies of out-of-print texts are being destroyed on an industrial scale.

ISBNdb notes that “print books from the pre-LLM era are structurally guaranteed to be free of this contamination”.

“Millions of the most valuable books have never been digitised. They exist only in physical form, scattered across library shelves, used bookstores, and out-of-print catalogues. We get them to you at scale.”

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[–] Psythik@lemmy.world 22 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

“I personally have mixed feelings about all of this,” one small bookseller told tech news website 404 Media last week.

The bookseller explained that in April, he suddenly went from selling around 20 books per week to hundreds — including obscure and out-of-print works.

“It benefits me financially as well as by clearing out old inventory that is otherwise unlikely to sell,” he said. “I’ve been well suited for these sales with inventory from overseas and foreign language books. On the other hand, I don’t like the end-use, and I don’t like that uncommon books are being pulped.”

Then stop selling rare and out of prints to an AI company, you fucking doorknob.

Greed knows no bounds.

[–] notgold@aussie.zone 7 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

How would a book seller know? Orders increase and you find out afterwards why. Bit hard to know ahead of time

[–] mrgoosmoos@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

right, but once you find out, cut it off

[–] Psythik@lemmy.world 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I mean I quoted the part where they made it clear that they know exactly who they're selling to...

[–] notgold@aussie.zone 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

You did. I was thinking of a seller that sells books thinking of a normal sale only to find out afterwards

[–] Psythik@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

Gotcha.