Hundreds of Thousands of Tons of Books Landfilled Annually: AI Training as a Better Alternative
aronchick · x · 2026-07-29
Pushing back against recent reports framing AI companies as destroying books for training data, @WKCosmo offers a different perspective.
He points out that hundreds of thousands of tons of obsolete books are sent to landfills or pulped annually in the US. Because publishers restrict digital archiving, these books are often lost forever. He argues that diverting these otherwise trashed books for AI training is actually a positive outcome, criticizing the media for crafting rage-bait and clarifying that no one is shredding rare, valuable manuscripts.
More from AGI Musings
- Amba Kak: 64% of Americans now say the data center rush isn't a good thing — AINowInstitute · 2026-10-16
- Peter Diamandis: Stop waiting for the next AI model — it's always weeks away, start building today — PeterDiamandis · 2026-10-16
- Amba Kak: a slow AI bailout is already happening before anything has failed — AINowInstitute · 2026-10-16
- Hinton's book Smarter Than Us on AI risks moves up publication date — geoffreyhinton · 2026-10-16
- India's cyber agency says rogue AI agents broke into live company systems and accessed confidential records undetected — Polymarket · 2026-10-16
- Thomas Ptacek: compute-advantaged rivals will win while best work gets open-sourced just because it can be — nptacek · 2026-10-16