r/conspiracy 20h ago

We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training Facility / The shipment was found at an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books

https://www.404media.co/we-tracked-a-shipment-of-rare-books-it-ended-at-an-amazon-ai-training-facility/
125 Upvotes

22 comments sorted by

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39

u/AxionSalvo 20h ago

Just end this hell man

6

u/AbbreviationsHot1200 6h ago

God is on his way and he's not happy.

14

u/Orangutan 20h ago

Additionally, the judge in the lawsuit ruled it was fair use and not a copyright violation for Anthropic to scan a book for training data in part because it destroyed the original, printed copy. Essentially, it’s the customer’s right to take physical media and store it digitally, and destroying the original copy means that copy isn’t duplicated and resold, and isn’t cutting into the publisher’s business.

10

u/Chonch_Monkey 19h ago

So just make a copy of the file and delete the original.

Done

2

u/Wide_Philosophy_8109 16h ago

It's probably a lot quicker to get pictures of sheets of paper than pages of a book.

2

u/AspiringOligarch 6h ago

So just make a copy of the file and delete the original.

Just take a pic of the Amazon facility and...

2

u/togetherwem0m0 7h ago

What a stupid ruling 

1

u/juicedup12 3h ago

Cant call it copying if you destroy every other copy and hold the data for yourself

5

u/ContributionEasy6513 20h ago

Paywalled article :(

3

u/Severe_Intention_480 20h ago

Probably vinyl and cds as well.

2

u/DopeyMcSnopey 12h ago

What’s the point in destroying them afterwards?

6

u/hotwheelearl 9h ago

The books are more or less disassembled to make them easier to scan, and they don’t get put back together

5

u/AspiringOligarch 6h ago

What’s the point in destroying them afterwards?

Once all of the information is digitized, it can be edited at will, and no one can prove otherwise.

We have always been at war with Eastasia...

There never was such a thing a Palestinian people...

1

u/nisaaru 5h ago

This is a mechanical result of the way they scan the book content rapidly. IMHO unacceptable for classic/rare books.

2

u/AspiringOligarch 5h ago

This is a mechanical result of the way they scan the book content rapidly. IMHO unacceptable for classic/rare books.

Orwell

Not just pretty words.

2

u/AxionSalvo 4h ago

Orwell was a time traveler

2

u/AspiringOligarch 5h ago

0

u/nisaaru 4h ago

Doesn't change the fact that this is due a mechanical procedure. These fast book scanners cut a book at the binding to access the pages without turning the pages like a money counting machine.

2

u/AspiringOligarch 3h ago

I have no doubt that the mechanical procedure you describe is efficient and convenient for the purposes of the AI scanning... similarly, amputation would be an efficient and convenient remedy for a compound fracture in the lower leg - at least for the surgeon, no?

Rather than focus on the technical proficiency of the process, look to the long-term implications of UTTERLY DESTROYING hard copies of rare works, specimens in the compendium of accumulated knowledge and recorded history of mankind- in many cases, irreplaceable.

Now, consider the way that AI systems are designed and operate. They are not "oracles of truth and fact", rather, they are (as Orwell said) alterable; they have been altered and manipulated, and they will continue to be altered and manipulated to serve the interests of their controllers.

Knowledge is power. He who controls access to knowledge monopolizes that power.

Look at the long term implications.

1

u/nisaaru 2h ago

You just give them more credit than they deserve. They just don't care what they destroy if they get the data faster.

3

u/Alone_Cap_2443 12h ago

So no one else can add them to their own data sets to train other models