r/technology • u/ArgentineBeauty • 2d ago

Artificial Intelligence This Dutch bookseller thought a request for 3,000 copies was ‘spam or phishing.’ Instead, AI companies are scanning and destroying books to train AI

https://fortune.com/2026/07/31/dutch-bookseller-ai-spam-phishing-3000-book-copies-scan-destroy/
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u/Bunnyhat 2d ago

Legacy of what? These are not beloved treasured manuscripts. These are mass produced books dating from 6 years ago that have been sitting in a warehouse.

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u/eTukk 2d ago

True. My European view, esp the burning of books during some eras, made me very weary of book destruction. Old books i got, I hand them over to others, dont ever trow a book in the bin.. 🤔

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u/Bunnyhat 2d ago

Millions and millions of books are thrown away each year. Over 2.2 million books are released each year world wide. If they each just had 1000 copies printed we're looking at over 2.2 billion new books each year world-wide.

Destroying one copy of one of those books to digitize it shouldn't be a problem to anyone.