Japanese used bookstores see 5x sales surge as AI firms buy books by the ton

stayndarsh · reddit · 2026-09-26

Japanese used bookstores are seeing a 5x sales surge as books are purchased by the ton, including one 50-ton order shipped to the US for AI scanning and destruction. Multiple suspicious bulk buys are believed to be headed to foreign AI scan-and-shred facilities, showing how AI's appetite for training data is reshaping the secondhand book market.

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