"Where they burn books, they will, in the end, burn human beings too"
AI companies need huge amounts of text to train their models, increasing demand for books and other written material.
Destructive scanning is reportedly being used in some cases: books are cut apart, their pages are rapidly scanned, and the physical copies are often discarded.
Rare and valuable books are particularly at risk, because once dismantled, their physical and historical value cannot be restored through a digital copy.
Amazon and Anthropic have faced criticism over reports of books being destroyed for AI training purposes.
The practice raises copyright and legal questions, especially when copyrighted works are used without permission.
Digitisation and destruction are not the same. Libraries digitise books to preserve them while keeping the original; destructive scanning sacrifices the original for its content.
Books are more than information. Their editions, bindings, annotations, illustrations and physical history can have cultural value.
The controversy reflects a larger question: Should technological progress come at the cost of cultural preservation?
A better approach would be to digitise books while preserving the original physical copies, particularly rare and historically significant works.
The central concern is simple: AI should not have to destroy the physical heritage from which it draws its knowledge.
