AI Companies Accused of Buying Rare Books to Scan for Training, Then Destroying Them
heyshrutimishra · x · 2026-07-30
A user reported that AI companies are purchasing large quantities of used and rare books, scanning their contents to train models, and then turning the originals into pulp.
This practice means that many books will permanently disappear from the physical world. The knowledge survives only as training data inside a system, sparking widespread controversy over knowledge preservation and the destruction of physical cultural heritage in the digital age.
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