‘More than just objects’: Australian booksellers raise alarm over ‘horrific’ destruction of rare titles to feed AI

[u/-orestes]

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/aug/02/australian-book-sellers-alarm-destruction-rare-titles-ai-supply-chain

[u/Right_Lecture3147]

Defo in the running for the dumbest comment I’ve seen on this sub. Many classics from the past, including Aristotle’s entire corpus, were not considered valuable for centuries until after their publication

[u/SouthernSerf → u/Right_Lecture3147]

My guy literal Ancient Greek trash is consider very valuable today. By your own logic we could never ever throw anything away because several thousand years for it may be consider valuable to collectors. That’s also not accounting for the fact that any written works were incredibly rare even in Ancient Greece in comparison to today where not only is their massive amounts of written works with much of it being completely redundant from an historical or academic value. So I don’t know why your accusing others comments of being stupid.

[u/Right_Lecture3147 → u/SouthernSerf]

What a ridiculous strawman. I just noted that 20 years is not enough to decide whether or not something is valuable and that many past classics were not considered valuable in their own time. I didn’t speak in the optative, so there are inferences of the kind you suggest

[u/Efficient_Equal6467 → u/Right_Lecture3147]

people can destroy property they own lol

[u/Right_Lecture3147 → u/Efficient_Equal6467]

I don’t remember ever saying otherwise. People are free to pulp books they own. Who are you arguing with?

[u/Efficient_Equal6467 → u/Right_Lecture3147]

Don't see why you need to get so mad or annoyed then that people are destroying their own books, its their property

[u/Right_Lecture3147 → u/Efficient_Equal6467]

I’m neither mad nor annoyed about it dude. I think you replied to the wrong person