futurism.com
AI Companies Are Buying Antique Books, Ingesting Their Contents to Train Models, and Then Destroying Them at Incredible Scale, Even If Almost No Copies Remain
AI companies are quietly obtaining rare books, ingesting their contents, and then destroying them -- even if they're exceedingly rare.
![Comic. [Person and person with white hat facing two boxes stacked with $80 price tag and sale tag on each box.] PERSON 1: They want $80 for this? I could make one myself for $10 in parts, an hour of work, a trip to the hardware store, another $30 in parts, another few hours of work, two more trips to the store for $20 more in parts, another hour of work to redo the first hour of work because I messed up, and $80 to buy this when the one I made breaks.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:cz73r7iyiqn26upot4jtjdhk/bafkreifdsd32pjwefxji33c5eferlek4o6kkadoosqisb5uatqjmrq4q4q)
