236
AI labs buy, scan, shred millions of rare books (www.news.com.au)
submitted 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) by themachinestops@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/technology@lemmy.world
42 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Artificial intelligence labs are in a new arms race to buy up millions of rare books, slicing them open, scanning the pages and pulping the remains — sparking concerns that the last remaining copies of out-of-print texts are being destroyed on an industrial scale.

ISBNdb notes that “print books from the pre-LLM era are structurally guaranteed to be free of this contamination”.

“Millions of the most valuable books have never been digitised. They exist only in physical form, scattered across library shelves, used bookstores, and out-of-print catalogues. We get them to you at scale.”

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] GrabtharsHammer@lemmy.world 22 points 10 hours ago

This sounded like clownish villainy in Rainbows End. I swear these guys are compulsively drawn to the worst parts of SciFi.

[-] idiomaddict@lemmy.world 3 points 7 hours ago

As his faculties return, Robert (who has always been technophobic) must adapt to a different world, where almost every object is networked and mediated-reality technology is commonplace.

…

However, jitter and latency are considerable problems with this basic network when long distances are involved. In the novel, Robert Gu develops an algorithm that partially compensates for these technical deficiencies, and might ultimately allow the inclusion of haptics.

This feels like it would be a little Mary-Sue to me, but I haven’t read the book. Is that transition handled well?

[-] GrabtharsHammer@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago

I found it a bit of a stretch that a cranky technophobe English professor could, or even would bother to, create an algorithm the whole world of math and computer nerds overlooked. But I don't let preposterous characters get in the way of my big-ideas SF when I can help it.

this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2026
236 points (98.0% liked)

Technology

86683 readers
3809 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
L3s@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world
technopagan@lemmy.world
L4s@lemmy.world
L3s@hackingne.ws