Book culture may be at stake. To remain competitive, AI training companies have resorted to old books; not just old, but rare. The book tycoon Amazon seems to have been buying rare books in bulk. 404 Media worked with a bookseller to reveal the (possible) truth.
On Monday, 404 Media revealed that it had connected with a bookseller who agreed to plant an Airtag in a rare book that was part of a bulk order. That Airtag was then tracked to an Amazon AI training facility in Las Vegas that housed a team focused on tearing books from their spines and scanning pages, 404 Media reported. Apparently tone-deaf to the escalating backlash over destructive book scanning, a logo on the door of that team’s warehouse, VGT3, showed a Tyrannosaurus rex preparing to devour a book, 404 Media documented. (Ars Technica)
A T-Rex ripping off a book. Its symbolic meaning is rather clear, isn’t it? Either the T-Rex reads voraciously to outwit humanity or to destroy (‘devour’) the books without empathy.
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I recently had a conversation with an English Literature professor in late July and I brought up this topical discussion to her.
‘Oh. I don’t know that. I only know that the AI companies have been feeding their models old books. It means that old thoughts will be coming back to us.’
Holocaust and slavery advocacy flashed on my mind. Perhaps I was just focusing on the grim side of history. There are also Shakespeare and Leonardo de Vinci, not to mention the great classics in the Chinese canon. AI is the greatest reader of all time, even though it may not read closely like humans.
‘I cannot imagine AI reads Hitler,’ replied I after a pause of reflection.
‘Well. They said they have hired philosophers to make sure things are moral. But I don’t know.’
I guess. A reader of Shakespeare and Hitler would have been a hard imagination for me if AI hadn’t existed.
~
Human thinking is hardly objective and analytical. It involves self-consciousness, emotions, and beliefs, among other human experience. That is perhaps my rough summary of ‘subjectivity’. As long as AI isn’t subjective, its thinking is the same as human thinking; but I wouldn’t say its objective logical ‘brain’ (if it has one) is more preferable. Unless AI contradicts itself as much as Hamlet, till then we are good. If that day comes, Hamlet-ish AI may appear more human than us all.
Reference list
Ars Technica. 'Hidden Airtag reveals Amazon is trashing rare books to train AI'.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/08/hidden-airtag-reveals-amazon-is-trashing-rare-books-to-train-ai/