The issue presented raises moral and legal questions about the training of AI

BBC News

Secondhand book sales are booming. Is it because of AI?

Booksellers are reporting mysterious bulk orders. It's thought the books are being used to train AI - and ending up pulped.

I wonder also what Ray Bradbury would have made of it (Fahrenheit 451) ?

Edited August 15Aug 15 by studiot

Well, this a bit of on the nose for a metaphor, isn't it? Also very fitting given where things are headed.

I do hope the AI algorithm makes certain which books are fact and which are fiction!

Ars Technica ran a story the other day about how 404 Media connected with a bookseller who agreed to plant an Airtag in a rare book that was part of a bulk order.

Ars Technica

Hidden Airtag reveals Amazon is trashing rare books to tr...

Amazon’s team uses a T. rex preparing to devour a book as its logo.

That Airtag was then tracked to an Amazon AI training facility in Las Vegas that housed a team focused on tearing books from their spines and scanning pages, 404 Media reported. Apparently tone-deaf to the escalating backlash over destructive book scanning, a logo on the door of that team’s warehouse, VGT3, showed a Tyrannosaurus rex preparing to devour a book, 404 Media documented.

Amazon have declined to comment beyond stating :

“Amazon purchases books through commercial channels to help develop and improve the products and services our customers use,”