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

"mandala" effect

You sure you remember that name correctly?

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!".

Is this gif from that tom hanks movie?

seveneves - Sonar Taxlaw

Ah the American dream. Be greedy, selfish and only care about yourself.

Yet your countries keep helping and benefit almost like this is a global class war.

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.

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.

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 was wondering how feasible this is for an average Joe. My assumption was not very, thank you for confirming.

Libraries quite often have book scanners.

Those who want to conduct large-scale scans and upload many titles can reach out to the archive for support, as the archive says that it “can help pay for the scanning fees and other rewards.”

If you've got some comfort with tinkering:

https://www.diybookscanner.org/

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.

just because it looks similar doesnt mean it is similar you thetralic midwit

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.

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 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.

gigo.

books are better sources imho.

Which app is good for this task? Last time I checked the result was garbage, as in not really better than simply the picture itself. But that was years ago...

The headline does not contain any clickbait-typical elements, for instance

• Most of The Words Capitalized
• A question mark at the end
• "You won't believe'
• etc.

Allegedly, it’s the rare, “undesirable” prints - the ones that just didn’t sell? Again, allegedly. But where’s a title disclosure?

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'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.

All those books seem to end up in goodwill eventually. What better place to gather them all for destruction.

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?

every article I saw says the books were scheduled to be destroyed or taken to a dump

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.

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.

Sounds like propaganda to me.

Sorry, I'm having trouble understanding what you're saying with those boots in your mouth.

Take your feelings and shove them up your ass clanker