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: kbin.earth/m/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com/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.

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-servers

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

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.