AI burns books? Tech giants are buying, shredding books to train smarter chatbots
AI Tech giants have been working on a secret project to buy millions of books and destroy them to feed their new models.
AI companies and tech giants are reportedly purchasing and destroying millions of rare books to train their artificial intelligence models and prevent "slop" content, according to a report from 404 Media. These tech giants are allegedly paying contractors to buy rare books, which are then scanned using high-speed machines that cut out the spines and shred the original copies.
The companies are reportedly interested in pre-2022 books, which they believe are free of AI-generated contamination. In January, the Washington Post reported that Anthropic, an AI company backed by Amazon and Google, attempted to buy and destroy millions of books to train their chatbot, Claude. Anthropic later settled a multi-million dollar class action lawsuit with authors who claimed the company used pirated versions of their books without permission.
Despite the destruction of the books, Anthropic argued that their use of the books was a fair use under copyright law. However, a federal judge ruled that the company violated the authors' rights by creating a central library of pirated books that were destroyed. Critics argue that the legal ruling rewards book destruction while penalizing preservation efforts.
Some tech executives, such as Elon Musk, have expressed distaste for the destruction of books, stating that it is a misanthropic act.
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