Amazon Buys and Destroys Books for AI Training, Investigation Reveals
mkheck · x · 2026-08-17
An investigation by 404 Media reveals that Amazon is purchasing massive quantities of books and processing them at a Las Vegas facility (VGT3) to scan for AI training data. Employees report cutting the spines off books to scan pages more efficiently, after which the physical copies are destroyed. Amazon confirmed it purchases books through commercial channels to improve its products. The report notes that printed books pre-2022 are becoming a critical source of clean human-written text free from AI contamination, as internet scraping resources dwindle. A court ruling suggests that destroying the original copies strengthens the fair use argument for such scanning.
Related event: AirTag Sting Exposes Amazon Destroying Rare Books to Feed AI Training(12 posts)→
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