We placed a tracking device in a shipment of rare books to see which AI company was buying it, and found an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books.
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We placed a tracking device in a shipment of rare books to see which AI company was buying it, and found an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books.
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We placed a tracking device in a shipment of rare books to see which AI company was buying it, and found an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books.
@404mediaco Destroying rare books is beyond fucked up! The material already exists in digital form for the vast majority of texts…and if you MUST destroy to scan, use modern reprints!
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We placed a tracking device in a shipment of rare books to see which AI company was buying it, and found an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books.
@404mediaco I'm all for *checks note* Model collapse.
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We placed a tracking device in a shipment of rare books to see which AI company was buying it, and found an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books.
The dystopia predicted by Fahrenheit is already there.
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@404mediaco Destroying rare books is beyond fucked up! The material already exists in digital form for the vast majority of texts…and if you MUST destroy to scan, use modern reprints!
@JPummil @404mediaco they just cant be fucked to create nondestructive scanners, bunch of wankers
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We placed a tracking device in a shipment of rare books to see which AI company was buying it, and found an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books.
@404mediaco Another reason I'm a paid subscriber to 404 media. They are doing the lord's work in this tech-broseph-laden dystopian hellscape we all find ourselves in.
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We placed a tracking device in a shipment of rare books to see which AI company was buying it, and found an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books.
That employees are scanning the barcodes or ISBNs on books — a unique serial number given to every published book — before scanning their content gives further credence to another theory put forth by booksellers: AI companies are trying to methodically scan every printed book in the world by working through the list of ISBNs. One bookseller told me they suspected this was the case because the very large orders they were getting never included very rare books that do not have ISBNs.
That's enlightening and ghastly. Great article, thank you.
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@JPummil @404mediaco they just cant be fucked to create nondestructive scanners, bunch of wankers
@Bredroll @JPummil @404mediaco I think you misunderstand - the destruction is to get around Americain Copyright Law.
You can hate us more now.
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We placed a tracking device in a shipment of rare books to see which AI company was buying it, and found an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books.
@404mediaco Yet Bezos is setting up a fund to protect certain endangered species! Hypocrite.
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@Bredroll @JPummil @404mediaco I think you misunderstand - the destruction is to get around Americain Copyright Law.
You can hate us more now.
@Epic_Null @Bredroll @JPummil @404mediaco And I guess it's also the reason why they'll never release the PDF or text files they now have in their possession. That, at least, would have been slightly comforting...
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We placed a tracking device in a shipment of rare books to see which AI company was buying it, and found an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books.
«These booksellers suspected AI companies were behind these large bulk purchases because of the high number of books they were buying, the seemingly random choice of books, and the fact that these buyers, unlike libraries and universities, did not seem price sensitive at all.»
https://www.404media.co/we-tracked-a-shipment-of-rare-books-it-ended-at-an-amazon-ai-training-facility/I hope that booksellers raise prices for their rare books accordingly!
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@404mediaco Destroying rare books is beyond fucked up! The material already exists in digital form for the vast majority of texts…and if you MUST destroy to scan, use modern reprints!
@JPummil @404mediaco ...and if you just wanna shred books, there's millions of copies of JKRowling that are ready...
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That employees are scanning the barcodes or ISBNs on books — a unique serial number given to every published book — before scanning their content gives further credence to another theory put forth by booksellers: AI companies are trying to methodically scan every printed book in the world by working through the list of ISBNs. One bookseller told me they suspected this was the case because the very large orders they were getting never included very rare books that do not have ISBNs.
That's enlightening and ghastly. Great article, thank you.
@blobster @404mediaco Good job I never put an ISBN on my eBooks!
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@404mediaco Destroying rare books is beyond fucked up! The material already exists in digital form for the vast majority of texts…and if you MUST destroy to scan, use modern reprints!
@JPummil @404mediaco Due to the recently-settled lawsuit, they can't reliably use digital sources because they can't guarantee the pedigree on the data. But thanks to first-sale doctrine, if they buy a physical copy and destructively scan it, the resulting data is theirs to use for training with no risk of a copyright violation.
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@Bredroll @JPummil @404mediaco I think you misunderstand - the destruction is to get around Americain Copyright Law.
You can hate us more now.
@Epic_Null @Bredroll @JPummil @404mediaco
I guess it's a fringe benefit that it will also gradually diminish the availability of reliable information, thus increasing the value of such information in our brave dystopian future. The motto can be "They who can afford books get to possess true knowledge." -
That employees are scanning the barcodes or ISBNs on books — a unique serial number given to every published book — before scanning their content gives further credence to another theory put forth by booksellers: AI companies are trying to methodically scan every printed book in the world by working through the list of ISBNs. One bookseller told me they suspected this was the case because the very large orders they were getting never included very rare books that do not have ISBNs.
That's enlightening and ghastly. Great article, thank you.
@blobster @404mediaco Just for clarity, ISBNs track each edition of a book; hardbacks and paperbacks will get different ISBNs.
So this is a sorta dumb way to do what they want to do.
(Eg, 0374275637 and 0374533555 are both Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow, in hardback and paperback, respectively.) They may also be buying the same book with the ISBN-10 and ISBN-13, 978-0374533557 for the paperback.)
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We placed a tracking device in a shipment of rare books to see which AI company was buying it, and found an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books.
@404mediaco baller move and great story
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@Epic_Null @Bredroll @JPummil @404mediaco And I guess it's also the reason why they'll never release the PDF or text files they now have in their possession. That, at least, would have been slightly comforting...
@jrdumas They do release it. It's in the agent and can be more or less extracted word-by-word. @Epic_Null @Bredroll @JPummil @404mediaco
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@blobster @404mediaco Just for clarity, ISBNs track each edition of a book; hardbacks and paperbacks will get different ISBNs.
So this is a sorta dumb way to do what they want to do.
(Eg, 0374275637 and 0374533555 are both Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow, in hardback and paperback, respectively.) They may also be buying the same book with the ISBN-10 and ISBN-13, 978-0374533557 for the paperback.)
@adamshostack @blobster @404mediaco Both editions are being pulled from circulation and destroyed, though. Which I think might be the point.
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@adamshostack @blobster @404mediaco Both editions are being pulled from circulation and destroyed, though. Which I think might be the point.
@drwho @blobster @404mediaco Why would you bother scanning the same book twice?
I believe that most of the rare books being gathered are probably self-published works, which are both rare, and most of those are obscure for good reasons. (The recent growth of self-publish with Kindle changes the ratio somewhat.)
