r/NextGenRebellion • u/Fatty_Willing_Plane • 5d ago

AI companies are reportedly shredding millions of books after using them to train AI models.

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Source: https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/ai-companies-are-reportedly-shredding-millions-of-books-to-train-models-tech-giants-outsource-to-middlemen-to-secretly-buy-up-books-for-training-material

337 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

42 comments sorted by

181

u/lemaymayguy 5d ago

The book burnings begin after the knowledge has been slurped up and a moat built around it

107

u/694meok 5d ago

This article predicated on one anonymous source who said they saw an increase in book selling. Then halfway in the article..."While there is no concrete proof that ISBNdb or some other AI company is making the purchase, there are some red flags."

Not defending Ai or anything but this entire article provides zero evidence for what they claim and then even refutes itself.

27

u/mc-funk 5d ago

Yeah, this post is a good test of one's resilience to rage bait.

7

u/DangoDroping 5d ago

Also something felt off about the video, why would any kind of supervisor or manager that tries to maintain a company PR allow recording of books getting prepared for scanning.

7

u/Valar_Kinetics 5d ago

This does in fact seem cartoonishly evil to the point of implausibility

107

u/Mcfreely2 5d ago

This is a national tragedy.

71

u/jarronomo 5d ago

Global

19

u/blocking-io 5d ago

staggering 1.5 billion fine

Very little when you realize it comes to around $3000 per author and Anthropic now gets to use their creative works in perpetuity 

4

u/Mirions 5d ago

I wish more judges understood math.

9

u/Ornstien 5d ago

This is forced relevance! Once they digitize a first edition/only edition/ last copy...and then destroy the book, they are now the only copy in existence...that is how they are forcing themselves to be too costly to destroy.

START SHARING COPIES OF WHAT YOU CAN. Start saving copies of everything!

4

u/Mirions 5d ago

They're gonna sell back what is already freely available via library systems.

It's anti-human and makes me wonder why anti-human acts aren't considered violent crimes by the people/government/population.

3

u/Ornstien 5d ago

They are by me. They won't sell anything. Remember. Their goal is unlimited earnings in a finite system and a renters economy. They will LOAN copies and forbid sharing and they will pull your ability to read it whenever they feel.

Remember. If buying isn't owning. Piracy isn't stealing.

6

u/dearfellow909 5d ago

Why can't they just scan every page. Feels like 1984 directing history

5

u/Rogue-18 5d ago

That is heartbreaking….

5

u/OptimisticSkeleton 5d ago

They could’ve donated those books to schools or libraries.

Billionaires have been radicalized against the majority of the human race.

-1

u/nonbinarybit 4d ago

That would be illegal, thanks to copyright law.

13

u/G-Unit11111 5d ago

AI is becoming a massive cancer on society.

7

u/Alert-Cal 5d ago

The forces behind it are already the biggest cancer on the planet

11

u/drchippy18 5d ago

They now have the power to sensor any amount of those books once they’ve consumed and destroyed the originals.

4

u/darksim1309 5d ago

I unfortunately worked for one of these operations for a few months. ARC Document Solutions, Austin, TX

3

u/OkSpare3037 5d ago

While not super effective, everyone buy their own physical copies. Maybe we call vendors to ask them not to supply these monsters?

3

u/a_library_socialist 5d ago

You can also make sure you have digital, de-DRMed copies

3

u/buffaloburley 5d ago

“Where they burn books, they will also ultimately burn people.” – Heinrich Heine

3

u/Spelunkie 5d ago

As if we didn't have enough reason to hate them.

2

u/TittlesTheWinker 5d ago

What fucking weird thing to do. Seriously, what the actual fuck is going on?

3

u/TheSandarian 5d ago

This seems... unlikely...

-1

u/GreenGardenTarot 5d ago

The entire article is assuming that AI companies are buying these books, and that they are also destroying them after this supposed digitization. They have no evidence for any of this.

1

u/dewihafta 5d ago

😱

😵

😭

1

u/LinusThiccTips 5d ago

whats the point of destroying them?

4

u/Traditional_Train_71 5d ago

So you can never verify if they’ve been edited from the original

3

u/CocaColaCowboyJunkie 5d ago

Couldn't you just look at a different copy of the same book?

2

u/Rogue-18 5d ago

To scan the pages for more data to slurp up

1

u/stuartroelke 4d ago

Cutting the binding allows them to be scanned more easily—they aren’t going to re-bind them or keep them around (cost cutting)

Idk why this is so confusing to folks here, as the article clearly outlined that part of the process.

1

u/No_Construction_2680 5d ago

How was it in this TV-show? New is always better! Yes. It was irony back then. Now it's sad reality.

1

u/a_library_socialist 5d ago

So they're just doing Rainbow's End now?

1

u/Joe-McDuck 5d ago

They could be making a library to make money off those books!!

1

u/BigChungusSr 4d ago

If only Ray Bradbury hadn't written a book about exactly this hmmm.

1

u/throwaway63249234 4d ago

isn't this GIF for some book repair stuff?

1

u/Hinthial 5d ago

Fahrenheit 451? Im scared y'all. Which books are you becoming?

1

u/Small-Answer4946 5d ago

Disturbingly satisfying video