World's largest open library calls for volunteers to scan and preserve physical books as AI companies buy, scan, and destroy them — Anna's Archive says ‘time is running out’ as ‘knowledge is permanent
cross-posted from: https://kbin.earth/m/[email protected]/t/3120649
As AI tech companies increasingly buy and destroy books to feed to their AI models, Anna's Archive is calling for volunteers to help preserve them for the public record.
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/worlds-largest-open-library-calls-for-volunteers-to-scan-and-preserve-physical-books-as-ai-companies-buy-scan-and-destroy-them-annas-archive-says-time-is-running-out-as-knowledge-is-permanently-monopolized-on-private-serversOpen linkView original on lemmy.dbzer0.com
97 replies
the AI ran out of Reddit slop material to scan, because reddit has been purging alot of content/accounts even suspected of spamming, so they go for physical books now.
I hate this timeline... It's things like this that make me hope we actually do live in a simulation, and the devs are about to release a major bug fix...
I have a feeling this is click bait...
The headline does not contain any clickbait-typical elements, for instance
"Then this happened..."
Fahrenheit 451 ass
I guess the next step is picking specific people to memorize specific books and pass that knowledge down to an assistant/acolyte who will keep the memories alive. Rinse and repeat. Fahrenheit 451 anybody?
Yall keep overreacting to this bs, what's even a rare book with no other copies, every article I saw says the books were scheduled to be destroyed or taken to a dump, and those are the books they are swooping up. I have a feeling rare means like 1st edition or one with typos or some sht. These are books ppl already weren't buying that they are grabving in mass. All knowledge and all books aren't important, plenty of below average intelligence ppl dropping slop long before ai became a thing. Any book that you value obviously already has tons of physical copies and digital backups.
This isn't them looting some ancient libraries/museums taking some hidden/secret knowledge from humanity like yall are making up in your heads.
Take your feelings and shove them up your ass clanker
Sorry, I'm having trouble understanding what you're saying with those boots in your mouth.
Do you have a source for this? Because I’ve seen literally nothing about this being the way books are being sourced. And no offense but this reads way too close to weasel words. For example: Every article I’ve read on the subject says my pants are sentient and enjoys my legs being in them. Also, I’ve read no articles on the subject so that isn’t a lie.
Fair point. Beside the point, is it technically correct to make a positive assertion about a negative thing — only because any positive assertion about that negative thing is inherently part of an empty set?
Meaning like… our logic technically rules based on “no available contradictions, even if there is no evidence” as opposed to “at least one evidence is required?”
In certain situations I’d agree that the absence of contradiction is evidence enough, but those situations are pretty specific. For example, we don’t have absolute proof that orange juice doesn’t cause cancer, our “proof” comes from the lack of reliable evidence showing that it does, along with relevant research. But that doesn’t mean every claim can be treated the same way. But that doesn’t mean every claim can be treated the same way, especially a claim based only on “every article I saw,” without a source being provided.
Sounds like propaganda to me.
Getting rid of physical copies of books so we can be monthly subscription slaves, disgusting
It's worse than that. I'm sure they're getting wet dreams about eradicating as many books as possible so that they can finally sell AI slop books at a premium price, claiming that will be "the last way to get something in [author] style!".
I'm rather thinking that hey want to make their slop machines the single source of truth. Much easier to get control over information, when all information is located in your own house.
If you read the blog post, they don't provide help or guidance for regular bookworms on how to scan. No information about what they expect.
Also, flatbed scanning a whole book takes many hours. It's one page at a time, line up each page, press the book flat and scan, for hundreds of pages.
You'd likely need to buy, or have access to a book scanner. Which is fine, there are cheap models, but who knows if that would work for them? They don't say. It doesn't seem like they're expecting help from you or me.
I was wondering how feasible this is for an average Joe. My assumption was not very, thank you for confirming.
These AI companies are just being Nazis, books on pyres…again.
just because it looks similar doesnt mean it is similar you thetralic midwit
Hey, there's some corporate boots that need licking, get to it.
Similar: having characteristics in common.
Looking similar does mean that two things are similar. You could have tried to make your point in a variety of ways, but you chose the way that can be countered by simply understanding English.
0/10
Okay I'll give you a hint. The bad thing about the nazis burning books wasn't that they were destroying physical copies of books. I'll give you a few keywords intent, selection, political control
Not only that, of course, but easily edited. It's a "mandala effect" generator. AKA modern gaslighting. They name the thing, point to legitimate examples, then abuse our new "understanding" to cover their crimes. 1984 indeed.
You sure you remember that name correctly?
Dang it, they changed it again!
I love where the headline cuts of:
Fucking scanning books without destroying them, the philistines! /s
Is this gif from that tom hanks movie?
Yeah it’s Toy Story 3
AI labs buy, scan, shred millions of rare books
It's been a while since I've seen Toy Story 3...is Al Labs run by the same guy who runs Al's Toy Barn? Voiced by Wayne Knight (Nedry, Newman...)
No I know AI companies are doing that, I just don't think they would be making gifs about it.
But there's a Tom Hanks movie that came out a few years ago where in the beginning of the movie he lives in a bunker because the UV index outside is so high the sunlight is basically radioactive, and he's building a robot and he uses a machine to chop the spines off of books to feed them into a scanner to train the robot brain.
That all takes place in the very beginning and then he leaves the bunker with the robot and some shit happens. But that's what I thought this gif was from.
Finch? Yeah it’s the same machine, just with a fun robot hand to make the sacrilege seem less awful, maybe?
Yeah, that sounds correct
I agree about not destroying books, but Anna's archive is ok with providing all of their info to llms
https://web.archive.org/web/20260305153357/https://annas-archive.gd/blog/llms-txt.html
Not like it’s their books to begin with. It’s all available as torrents
Eh, perfect is the enemy of good. I'll take the wins we can get. It's not like having to buy the books is gonna stop the biggest offenders from burning investor money (along with the books).
The defeat of LLMs isn't gonna come on that front. Let the cultists believe that more words will somehow become more than words. Their silicon gods run on power and water. That's where they're most vulnerable.
It's not necessarily trying to stop them burning the books, just stop their ability to monopolise the knowledge, that's their aim, lock the knowledge behind a subscription, Anna's archive will always be available for all, so why pay for their subscription if its available for free.
I was aiming for the poetic parallel between burning money and destroying books, but also, isn't the difference between destroying the primary source and preventing access to it mostly academic? Either way, as you say, the AI grifters are looking to control that information. Once they do, the original text and knowledge might as well be lost, since we couldn't verify anything without the original to compare to. Whether through deliberate human manipulation or random word soup mutation, they can't ever be trusted to deliver a genuine, faithful reproduction of the contents.
And the conclusion is the same: Better to have it freely available for everyone (including the grifters) than the grifters only.
They'll come for it at some point.
I am all up for starving machine learning of new knowledge but I view this as the least friction path. Otherwise, if the machines try to brute force their entry, what harm can kt cause?
I own some rare books but no book scanner. What should I do?
If your local library doesn't own a book scanner, any colleges near you may have one. You usually don't have to be a student to walk into the library, and the book scanners I've used don't require a login. YMMV on whether this is how it's set up where you are.
I might try this. Im concerned that some of the books may still be under copyright. Not all of my rare books are that old. I collect indie poetry books and comics as well as old religious texts/pamphlets.
Also concerned that some might be literally some of the only remaining copies and I really don't want to risk damaging them.
Hmm, it's just a few books but I do think they're pretty rare. Not something I'm willing to send away. I wonder if a library would be willing to help?
My local library has some large format scanners. I've considered using them to do my photo albums. I have the individual photos scanned and backed up, but the layout and margin notes are worth preserving also.
If you've got some comfort with tinkering:
https://www.diybookscanner.org/
Super outdated and the guide doesn't work
Remember, USA and it's AI companies did that.
texas was supppose to be filled to brim with AI datacenters, until hot wheels so his election chances diminishing, at leas until he wins again,or another R.
Ah the American dream. Be greedy, selfish and only care about yourself.
"It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it"
George Carlin, RIP
Last time I checked, no other country(apart from Russia) wanted to burn rare books and destroy the world.
also christians love a little book burning.
Well, there was that one time.in Germany. I wonder if there ate any other similarities with current US "leadership" and those guys.
Yet your countries keep helping and benefit almost like this is a global class war.
Nope, none of us are producing the kind of people and companies that would do this
This is the US. It’s peak US as well, with no other like aside from fascists or dictators
With modern phones having a document scan option with our phone cameras, is it possible we can scan and combine into a PDF file?
I am going to test it myself, see how easy it is, and find a way to ensure anyone can follow with low cognitive load, but hopefully it’s as easy as I think to do.
The sad part, is to do so would require a slow tedious task for books with hundreds of pages. It would be nice to see a large group tackle chunks at a time to the point we eventually have groups dedicated to genres and scouring to find them to preserve them.
destroying (A) physical copy. in order to copy the (1) copy of a book(which most new already exist as pdf). kinda like how people do it when they scan the book. which has been happening for decades now to make knowledge permanent.
far cry from "destroying all books" which these rage bait titles suggest. we arent standing around a pit of fire.
bigger tragedy is how humans seem shittier at communication as AI learns. probably a more accurate title.
There are many, many non destructive scanning methods. My understanding is that most archival projects are using the non destructive options.
The easy option is to just slice off the binding and run it through a scanner.
The easy option is what is being talked about here, and those books are then fed into AI as training material. The digital copies aren’t “making knowledge permanent” as they are tucked away into a digital corner virtually no one has access to. They are as permanent as the source code for Fortnite.
If a PDF already exists, as you claim, then why go to the trouble of obtaining, destroying and scanning the books again?
They're destroying everything like locusts
Any reputable orgs I can donate to for assisting the cause? I just don't feel I have the means otherwise to make a dent in the buying and preservation.
Perhaps there is a public library in your area that accepts donations? The one I live by is STARVING for support, they accept books, old computers, anything.
They do good work for the community too, like free tech literacy classes, chess for kids, etc.
But if you are dead set on an online NGO, then maybe archive.org? You have probably heard about their Wayback Machine, but they preserve books and other media too.
Ahh, good call. On it. Thanks!
Every time I hear that claim it sounds weird to me. You can't say that without an explanation.
Sure, scanning a print copy can mean distroying it but a book as a work still exist. We are very far from having scanned every books which physical copy are numerous. If AI trains on every romance novel published in the 80's, it is far from distroying books by distroying physical copy.
Now if AI company are searching for rare books to scan and distroy, it is much more worrying but finding rare editions or print copies of books is a trade and the normal citizen can't jumps in to save the day.
They are literally searching for rare books, paying premium costs for them, then cutting off their spines because it is faster to scan them that way.
Not only do they not need to destroy the books to scan them, but Google already did this 2 decades ago, and they did it non-destructively.
they arent paying extra, they are buying books planned for destruction anyways?
I just went on and read more article of the topics people shared in the comment. That's sounds worrying indeed but my point is more that Annans Archive appeal is very abstract in a way that it présent something that doesn't have to be a problem in a very sensationnalising manner instead of being clear about what is whappening and what we can do.
They're destroying things that don't have to be destroyed and compiling the information into privately owned megastructures they'll then charge us to access while we own nothing and they can then alter the books.
Nah I'm good. Everything these AI companies stand for is fucking evil and malicious.
For every AI that researches a legit medical issue, they start literally burning fucking books, replacing jobs, screwing basically everyone, and making the world overall much worse.
If you can't see why these companies destroying any amount of books is bad, idk how to help you. Maybe look up a list of who has ever mass destroyed books. There's not a lot of good people there.
Humans have been scanning books for decades. All books created today exist electronically before (a copy) gets physically printed of a book that remains existing.
Type writers are a museum piece. not a utility anymore. Calm down.
So you have the digital source of literally any book? Literally any single book you yourself didn’t write or publish.
Because the source code for GTA6 exists, but you sure as shit don’t have it.
And how about you? Do you have the hard originals of every book? Why do you suddenly care only now that books are being copied?? They've been getting scanned for half a century now. You only care now to be outraged about it something for today
I don’t think that’s the argument you think it is.
The outrage is over the books being destructively scanned, en mass, and held in private after the fact. Very, very, very different than the majority of scanning which is non destructive, and usually shared.
Not really. There is a lot of full manuscrit books made to this day. By scholar in region where electricity is not as much available. By student compile hand-written notes from oral teaching. By people composing small things for family and friends or just for themselves. By activist and locally involed people making just on or a few copy to be share in physicial Space around them.
That's a huge part of what exist outside the publishing industry.
And we used copiers and voice recorders for that since before computers. That has been used since the 70s. Even earlier.
scanning that and adding it to the common knowledge and making it accessible is something we've been doing since computers were a thing decades before today.
Students now still use recordings that can be parsed into text.
Suddenly it's an issue now because someone needs so badly to be outraged by literally everything that can be distorted into a rage bait title like this one.
You don't need to destroy books to scan them.
You're very gullible.
"gullible"
hurry, you better take up reading books to learn the meaning of these words you're using before the AI 'destroys' the useless copy you never wanted nor thought about until now.
There's a bunch of dirty corporate boots that need a good licking, I've heard you're just the person for the job!
All those books seem to end up in goodwill eventually. What better place to gather them all for destruction.
Many should probably be distroy without training a LLM or we will get models that are aggressivly mysoginist and who verbally abuse female users, on top of every other problem they cause.
Anyone know any good book scanners was looking around and not sure what i should get.
Ages ago I had mimicked the "overhead scanner" with a mounted digital camera, but now I'd go with a mounted smartphone + light bars + bluetooth photo trigger. Scrolling through Bezos' was pretty depressing in terms of cost/quality and even a $150 device seemed like a repurposed webcam, with a sole non-free confirmed buyer saying it died after 3 months while freebies praise it lol. As long as you don't scan drawings/designs/comic books - just set lights evenly and that'd be enough, and even moreso if you OCR it and turn a scan into an e-book where visual fidelity stops to matter.
same, probably when I'll have time in an other dimension I would love to make my own
i would help you in that dimension as well lol
I don't know about buying, but the ones I have seen basically hold the book open at a 45 degreeish angle, to not damage the spine. Then you press the pages with a 45 degree set of glass plates. The actual "scan" is a camera of some kind that slodes back.and forth between the two halves on a mount.
Yeah the edge flat beds was what I was looking at. Which sounds close?
So, my question is, of all these books being scanned and then destroyed, aren't there many more copies of these books? And BTW, knowledge isn't permanent. It can be lost.
If you had clicked on the article before commenting instead of just reading the headline, you'd have seen that it was truncated on the lemmy post
And if you had read the small number of other comments before commenting instead of just reading the headline, you'd have seen this correction already be posted: https://lemmy.world/comment/25456917
When someone can't answer a question a common response to change the subject. Do you have an answer to my question?
They just cut and bin the books after they've been scanned, the bins are taken to the local disposal, most municipalities have a garbage dump, some burn the trash.
An ai trained on unique data is more valuable if you don't share the data it was trained on to your competition, your LLM gains an edge.
If I found a unique handwritten book from the 18th century, than I proceed to read it and memorise then burn it, I'll be the only one to posses the knowledge of it.
There are very few, if any, rare, one of a kind books that would go through this process. If one of these books were scanned for an LLM it would be done delicately in a more time consuming manner and the book would be returned.
Okay, but aren't there more than 1 copy of the books they get their hands on? Or do they steal from museums?
Allegedly, it’s the rare, “undesirable” prints - the ones that just didn’t sell? Again, allegedly. But where’s a title disclosure?