From the website of the company that’s destroying books to feed them into the ravenous AI maw.

[ravenbait@mastodon.scot]

@overholt These people clearly don't understand the dfference between information, knowledge and understanding. Nor do they value the emotional resonance that comes from holding a book. These people have forgotten that humans are physical creatures, and the act of interacting with something with hands and fingers - the whole-sense experience of texture, small, sound, even taste - is of itself valuable.

A pox on them.

[wilpercy@beige.party]

@overholt sophistry masking theft.

[angiebaby@mas.to]

@overholt

"A human is a delivery mechanism for productivity. Once that productivity has been extracted and converted into profits, the delivery mechanism has served it's purpose. What remains is organs, bones and viscera. The human is not destroyed. Its value has migrated. The body returns to the earth; the profits enter the CEO's financial portfolio."

[troy_frizzell@mstdn.social]

@overholt

Imagine being that dead inside.

Horrific.

[jtinmi@fouroclockfarms.club]

@overholt 🤬 ️ 🤬

[jaypdub@mstdn.social]

@overholt
It's like a super villain monologue...

[vorsos@beige.party]

@overholt

[davidtheeviloverlord@mastodon.social]

@overholt

I call bullshit.

When I read a book, I learn. Something their "A.I." cannot do.

When I reach the end of the book, what remains is magic, crafted by a human being who poured a part of their heart and soul into it. Things their "A.I." does not possess.

And I don't tear the pages from books to read them. I can reach the end of the book without ending the book.

How could my son read my Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy books if I did? I finished them about 20 years before he was born.

[sinabhfuil@mastodon.ie]

@overholt how handy that electronic files never become corrupted

[overholt@glammr.us]

@sinabhfuil I am so glad to be in charge of material mostly recorded on incredibly durable parchment and rag paper that will need little more than a safe and stable environment to remain usable for centuries. Digital records are mayflies in comparison.

[timtfj@mastodon.social]

@eleanorrees @overholt And of processing with intelligence. It galls me that they dare use the word at all.

[gimulnautti@mastodon.green]

@overholt Bullshit trying to sound philosophical. Which is exactly what AI is most of the time.

In Logan's Run, a classic sci-fi picture, all the books had been destroyed, and people could only read summaries of them.

[samiamsam@mastodon.social]

@overholt

psycopaths

[kimlockhartga@beige.party]

@overholt It's also short-sighted. We cannot conceive of a massive interruption to our access to technology? It could happen in so many ways.

[heinragas@mublog.nl]

@overholt Tell me you don't understand how information works without telling me you don't understand how information works while you are telling me that you know how information works

[futuristicrobert@infosec.exchange]

@overholt "AI bros are a bullshit delivery mechanism. They possess no redeeming qualities. They provide no value. They are parasites."

[rokabe@mastodon.social]

@overholt

It's only just twigged that it's in an AI company's interest to destroy sources of information they don't own.

[dasgrueneblatt@wien.rocks]

@overholt 🤮

[research_ftw@sciences.social]

@overholt Not only do they have no appreciation for the written word or the sense of communion writers have with their readers. But they actively destroy it after they have 'consumed' it. This shows a highly capitalist consumption mindset that would rather destroy than share, so they can control it. Says a lot about the state of the world.

[id1om@mastodonapp.uk]

@overholt
I came across this related substack yesterday, where the author has additional information to impart...

"Is an AI company buying up all the used books? (I don’t think so, not this time.) | #103
But no matter what, the Library of Alexandria is still burning."

"The theory that’s taken off like wildfire on Twitter is that it’s an AI company buying all these books to scan them for purposes of creating more training data for the algorithm. My theory, which is a little more mundane, is that it’s just simple financial arbitrage."

https://charliebecker.substack.com/p/is-an-ai-company-buying-up-all-the