Amazon warehouse destroys rare books for AI training; its logo is a T. rex shredding a book
Published · updated · curated by AI Is Going Just Great
Source: cybernews.com ↗
It upsets me that there are ways to do this without destroying the book, but destroying the book is cheaper. Just awful.
An investigation by 404 Media found that Amazon operates a warehouse, code-named VGT3, where employees scan rare and out-of-print books for AI training data and then discard the physical copies. The facility's logo is a Tyrannosaurus rex poised to destroy a book. Workers in online forums worried the warehouse would shut down without a steady supply of old books; it remains open, with rare books brought in bulk for destruction.
Removing bindings makes high-speed scanning cheaper, and some legal interpretations hold that copying a book and destroying the original skirts copyright claims. Amazon said it "purchases books through commercial channels to help develop and improve the products and services [its] customers use." Anthropic was separately reported to have destroyed millions of books to train Claude.