Booksellers Suspect AI Firms Are Buying Rare Books—and Destroying Them

AI companies may be buying and destroying rare books to train their models, booksellers and book lovers suspect. The practice reportedly involves tearing out pages, scanning them, and discarding the physical volumes, as it is the fastest and cheapest scanning method.

There are fears that the destruction is happening on a larger scale than reported, putting irreplaceable copies at risk. The loss is especially painful because the process is not necessary.