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You're trying to imagine rare valuable books and then fantasizing about AI companies destroying them, but what's actually happening here is that AI companies ar
by frm88 26d ago
You're trying to imagine rare valuable books and then fantasizing about AI companies destroying them, but what's actually happening here is that AI companies are acquiring, digitizing, and then pulping the instruction manuals to 1983-vintage copy machines.
Source? You state that in a tone that implies you have verifiable knowlege of this. All the information I found says that the exact number, titles and authors are under NDA.
- tptacek 26d agoIt's in the 404 story.
- frm88 26d agoIt's not. The 404 article states (paraphrase): we're not going to disclose any titles, so where does your information come from. Please provide a link.
- tptacek 26d agohttps://www.npr.org/2026/08/19/nx-s1-5936438/why-tech-companies-are-buying-up-tons-of-rare-old-books-to-train-their-ai-models https://www.npr.org/2026/08/19/nx-s1-5936438/why-tech-compan...
- frm88 24d agoBut we don't necessarily know what we might find valuable in the future. 1. This is not the 404 media story you quoted as source 2. Maiberg's answer is most likely a book that has no emotional value. Translation: they do not know
- tptacek 24d agoYou're right. It's merely the writer of the 404 story, discussing their story.
- svachalek 26d agoGiven no information, would you assume companies that are buying "huge quantities" of "rare" books are getting first edition Jules Verne by the crate, or 1989 Highlights magazines recovered from dentist offices?
- runarberg 26d agoBoth. I think they are just buying whatever they can get their hands on most of it is going to be junk, but one in a million is going to be a rare and valuable book which we didn’t even know existed. After scanning and destroying 10 million books, AI companies will have destroyed 10 such books. (I am obviously assuming a Poisson distribution here where I pulled the parameter p = 1/1000000 out of thin air; point is p is non-zero; and at this scale the undesirable event is bound to happen a bunch of times).