AI Companies Are Buying and Destroying Used Books

Used booksellers are seeing sharp increases in sales from mystery bulk orders of unrelated nonfiction titles shipped to warehouses. Buyers use unusual names like Red Sparrow and Blue Finch.

I tracked shipments and found books went to warehouses, scanning facilities, and recycling plants. I am convinced the books are being scanned and destroyed by AI operations.

Anthropic's Project Panama involved buying millions of physical books to train AI models. Anthropic used a book guillotine to rapidly scan and destroy the books. A judge ruled the practice legal because the physical books were destroyed after scanning.

Sourcing books is widely used for AI training, and we do not buy and destroy rare or antiquarian books.

I feel revulsion at book destruction but acknowledge books are destroyed regularly anyway.

I will reject orders if I identify a book as rare.

Some booksellers worry they are seeding their own demise by feeding AI technology.

The practice will affect the economics of used book selling for at least a little while.