From Newsgroup: comp.misc

Traditionally, books have been good for two things: reading, and looking
nice on a shelf.

But AI companies are interested in neither.

To those building large language models, books are nothing more than fodder
to be devoured en masse before being spit out like fishbone. Often, theyrCOre happy to use digital books rCo or even better, pirated digital books, as Meta has been accused of doing, and as Anthropic was forced to pay a $1.5
billion settlement to authors for also doing.

But many companies, including Anthropic, have turned to ingesting physical books instead, which they can buy countless used copies of on the cheap. According to the settled lawsuit, Anthropic used a hydraulic powered
cutting machine to neatly remove the pages from the books it procured from
book resellers and then scanned them using industrial-grade imaging
equipment. In other words, it was literally ripping off authorsrCO books to train its AI.

This process took advantage of a legal concept known as first-sale
doctrine, which allows a buyer to do what they want with a purchase without
the original copyright holderrCOs say-so. And since Anthropic was turning the original physical texts into digital ones rCo rather than redistributing them as new copies rCo a judge found this to be rCLtransformative,rCY and therefore protected by fair use.

Now, as 404 Media reports, this practice has become prevalent enough that
even well-established book sellers are looking to cash in on the AI boom.
One called ISBNdb, which boasts the rCLworldrCOs largest book database,rCY extolls that the rCLworldrCOs best AI training data is setting on a shelf,rCY upholding these physical texts as uncorrupted by shoddy AI writing thatrCOs already polluted so much of the internet (and indeed, newer books).

rCLPrint books from the pre-LLM era are structurally guaranteed to be free of this contamination. That alone is a significant advantage,rCY it explains in
an article on its website, as quoted by 404. rCLPhysical books published
before this date [pre-2022] are structurally clean of modern poisoning tools.rCY

Once focused on helping libraries, distributors, and book shops find and
sell books, ISBNdb now helps AI companies bulk-buy anywhere between 1,000
to one million books per order, according to 404.

As an added bonus, it also promises AI companies that itrCOll keep their purchases under wraps rCo nobody wants to end up in the spotlight like Anthropic and Meta, obviously rCo while clearly sounding aware about how incredibly shady the practice sounds.

rCLThe optics problem is real,rCY ISBNdbrCOs site says. rCLrCyAI company destroys two
million booksrCO is not a headline that generates sympathy.rCY

One small book seller said that in April, he suddenly went from selling no
more than 20 books a week to hundreds, and herCOs almost certain that the customers are AI labs, noting the random selection of the books and how
they all have ISBNs. He added that his inventory is full with rare and out
of print books, meaning that an AI company could be destroying some of the
few remaining copies that can be found.

rCLI personally have mixed feelings about all of this,rCY the bookseller told 404. rCLIt benefits me financially as well as by clearing out old inventory that is otherwise unlikely to sell. IrCOve been well-suited for these sales with inventory from overseas and foreign language books. On the other hand,
I donrCOt like the end-use, and I donrCOt like that uncommon books are being pulped.rCY

More antique books may be endangered. 404 noted how rare booksellers in the Netherlands are being inundated with bulk purchases they believe are being
made by AI companies, though they canrCOt know for sure.

Similar suspicions are being felt all throughout the industry. Services
like ISBNdb facilitate these bulk orders, keeping the AI buyers anonymous
as promised. There may be strong hints thats a bulk order is for an AI lab,
but booksellers can, for the most part, merely speculate.

<https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/ai-companies-destroying-rare-books>

<https://archive.ph/Rq923>

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