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New: Unsealed court docs detail Big Tech’s yearslong, secret race to ingest the collective works of humanity, including Anthropic’s project to “destructively scan all the books in the world.” Gift link: wapo.st/4rjXAMQ

wapo.stHow Silicon Valley built AI: Buying, scanning and destroying millions of booksCourt filings reveal how AI companies raced to obtain more books to feed chatbots, including by buying, scanning and disposing of millions of titles.

Will Oremus

@willoremus.com

27 Jan

Anthropic hired the former head of Google Books to oversee its secret "Project Panama," new court docs show — quietly buying millions of used books in bulk, breaking their spines and scanning them to feed into its Claude chatbot. wapo.st/4rjXAMQ

The Dark Prince of Donair

@erisianrite.com

27 Jan

Yes, how do you think books get digitized?

Stephen Coles

@stewf.com

27 Jan

It is absolutely possible to digitize a book without destroying it. @archive.org does not destroy the books it images.

Time Spinner

@spinny.bsky.social

27 Jan

that's not true though? archive.org will very often destructively scan things, especially when they are building the OCR friendly edition for screen readers and they absolutely need the higher quality scans. they stream it, it's fun background noise

Stephen Coles

@stewf.com

Would love your source on this. I’ve been to the IA and seen the tools they use. Their core device is the Scribe Workstation, a cradle with suspended cameras that shoot each page (digitization.archive.org/digitization/). It may be slower than other methods but it is indeed the method they use.

digitization.archive.orgDigitization » Internet Archive Digitization ServicesLearn how Internet Archive digitizes collections with non-destructive scanning, metadata integration, and global access through Archive.org's open platform.

28/1/26, 12:48 am0 reposts1 like

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