They ran out of free information on the internet. They can't steal it just like that anymore because the providers are now aware of the value they could provide and could sue the now trillion dollars companies for stealing the data.
They didn't bother when it was a non-profit sponsored by Elon Musk.
> It has been discovered that online used bookstores across Japan have been receiving a surge of large orders for books since around August of this year. Interviews with these bookstores reveal reports of "100 books sold per day" and "days where sales have increased fivefold," leading to widespread speculation within the industry that the orders are intended to collect training data for generative AI (artificial intelligence). Further investigation revealed records of over 50 tons of books being exported from Japan to the United States. Is it acceptable for books to be consumed and discarded for AI training?
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> Nippon Television investigated using "Sayari," a tool that analyzes import and export data, and confirmed records that a group company of this major Japanese book distributor exported more than 50 tons of "JAPANESE BOOKS" to the US since last year. Assuming that all the books were heavy hardcovers (calculated at 500 grams), this would amount to the equivalent of 100,000 books.
Isn't the "burn after scanning" due to copyright? It seems like destructively scanning was an explicitly allowed method in Bartz v Anthropic as transformative fair use.
It’s more that they remove the spine of the book to more quickly, accurately, and easily scan through the pages. The book’s structural integrity is destroyed in the scanning process which is why they have to discard them when they are done.
I'm strongly against destroying books to train AI. That said, I'd be extremely interested in exploring the contents of Japanese books, which probably have a lot of stuff not available outside Japan, through a LLM.
2000 years ago Qin burnt books. Barbaric. Then Hitler burnt books. Barbaric. Now AI burnt books. Is legal and most cost effective ways. When Skynet happened, hard to pity barbaric humans.
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[ 0.22 ms ] story [ 17.7 ms ] threadThey didn't bother when it was a non-profit sponsored by Elon Musk.
> It has been discovered that online used bookstores across Japan have been receiving a surge of large orders for books since around August of this year. Interviews with these bookstores reveal reports of "100 books sold per day" and "days where sales have increased fivefold," leading to widespread speculation within the industry that the orders are intended to collect training data for generative AI (artificial intelligence). Further investigation revealed records of over 50 tons of books being exported from Japan to the United States. Is it acceptable for books to be consumed and discarded for AI training?
[...]
> Nippon Television investigated using "Sayari," a tool that analyzes import and export data, and confirmed records that a group company of this major Japanese book distributor exported more than 50 tons of "JAPANESE BOOKS" to the US since last year. Assuming that all the books were heavy hardcovers (calculated at 500 grams), this would amount to the equivalent of 100,000 books.