Amazon buys, destroys rare books for AI training
An Airtag, nestled within a rare book, guided investigators to an Amazon facility in Las Vegas.
There, a clandestine operation unfolded: unique literary works, ripped from their spines, scanned for AI training, then irrevocably destroyed. This discovery lays bare Amazon's secretive method for fueling its artificial intelligence ambitions. Companies now aggressively acquire and digitize rare books for AI training. Yet, this pursuit entails the physical destruction of irreplaceable cultural artifacts. The unbridled quest for AI data appears poised to continue sacrificing cultural preservation for technological speed, threatening an immeasurable loss of historical knowledge. The Scale of Destruction: An Industrial Imperative An investigation by 404 Media revealed books allegedly arrive at an Amazon facility in Las Vegas, according to Times Now . There, Amazon's AI training team tears books from their spines, scanning pages, as reported by arstechnica. This is not incidental damage; it is a systematic, industrial-scale operation. The process extracts data from physical books,…
