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

AI companies are reportedly buying and destroying old books so they can scan the pages as quickly as possible for AI training data. Booksellers suspect the practice is happening far more widely than reported, putting many physical copies at risk of being lost forever. The destruction is especially frustrating because experts say it is unnecessary, since the same texts could likely be digitized without sacrificing the original books.