AI Companies Accused of Pulping Rare Books After Scanning for Training Data
heyshrutimishra · x · 2026-07-29
Reports have emerged that AI companies are purchasing large quantities of used and rare books, scanning them for model training, and then destroying the physical copies by turning them into pulp.
This practice means the physical artifacts of human knowledge are permanently disappearing, surviving only as weights inside a system. It has sparked intense debate over data sourcing ethics and the preservation of cultural heritage.
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