{
  "id": 46663,
  "title": "AI burns books? Tech giants are buying, shredding books to train smarter chatbots",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/02/ai-burns-books-tech-giants-are-buying-shredding-books-to-train",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-08-02T15:22:59.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Jerusalem Post",
    "slug": "jerusalem-post",
    "url": "https://www.jpost.com/business-and-innovation/tech-and-start-ups/article-904336"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "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.",
  "summary": "AI companies are purchasing and subsequently destroying millions of rare books to train their AI models, according to a report by 404 Media. These tech giants are reportedly buying up rare books to train new AI models and prevent \"AI slop,\" or low-quality output. The books are scanned, their spines are cut out, and then shredded, with the tech companies buying up orders ranging from 1,000 to one million books. This move comes in response to consumer backlash against AI-generated content and the risk of \"model collapse,\" where AI models trained on lower-quality AI-generated results progressively lose quality. Anthropic, a leading AI company, was involved in a multi-million dollar class action lawsuit after reportedly purchasing and scanning millions of books without permission, leading to the destruction of the books. Despite the destruction of the books, Anthropic made a fair use of the authors' work to train their chatbot Claude, and a judge ruled in Anthropic's favor, finding that the company violated the authors' rights by saving more than seven million pirated books in a central library.",
  "key_points": [
    "Tech giants buying, shredding rare books for AI training",
    "Companies focus on pre-2022 books to avoid AI contamination",
    "Anthropic faced lawsuit for using pirated books in Claude chatbot"
  ],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": "https://urgent.news/ill/46663.png",
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 2,
    "also_reported_by": [
      {
        "outlet": "Jerusalem Post Tech & Start-Ups",
        "title": "AI burns books? Tech giants are buying, shredding books to train smarter chatbots",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/02/ai-burns-books-tech-giants-are-buying-shredding-books-to-train-329213",
        "published": "2026-08-02T17:27:27.000Z"
      }
    ]
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}