Should the destruction of rare books for AI training, as facilitated by services like ISBNdb for companies like Anthropic, be considered legal 'fair use'?
Digital Preservation or Destruction? The Controversy Over Shredding Rare Books for AI
A controversial practice is emerging within the AI industry involving the bulk-buying and physical destruction of rare books to facilitate large-scale data scanning. As reported by Hedgie @HedgieMarkets, companies like Anthropic are seeking to ingest 'all the books in the world' into their training models. To enable this, services like ISBNdb facilitate anonymous, massive orders of rare texts, which are then processed by high-speed machines that shred the original physical copies after scanning. While some proponents and companies attempt to frame this process as 'digital preservation,' critics argue that the damage is irreversible; once an 18th-century botanical text is shredded, its physical history is lost forever. A federal judge has already ruled this practice constitutes 'fair use,' reasoning that by destroying the original, the company ensures only one digital copy exists at any given time. This ruling has ignited a fierce debate: can the advancement of artificial intelligence justify the permanent erasure of irreplaceable human history and cultural artifacts that have survived wars and centuries?
Options
- Yes, it is 'fair use' if only one digital copy remains.
- No, the destruction of physical history is irreversible.
- It is a valid form of 'digital preservation.'
- This practice should be legally banned to protect artifacts.