posted in Technology

sanitation@sanitation@lemmy.today

‘More than just objects’: Australian booksellers raise alarm over ‘horrific’ destruction of rare titles to feed AI

www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/aug/02/australian-book-sellers-alarm-destruction-rare-titles-ai-supply-chain
the Guardian‘More than just objects’: Australian booksellers raise alarm over ‘horrific’ destruction of rare titles to feed AISecondhand booksellers believe they may have been caught up in the AI supply chain that sees old books scanned then destroyed
AwesomeLowlander@AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works
edited

Replying to @⁨sanitation@lemmy.today⁩

Delfina Manor, who runs Good Reading Secondhand Books in Benalla, Victoria, said she received orders from Zoom Books in May amounting to three full boxes, but had to write to the company and ask them not to order in such volume again.

“They ordered, paid in advance, and they didn’t quibble over the postage … [but] it would have been about 30 to 40 books, and so finding them, packing them, making sure you hadn’t missed one out … It was just driving me nuts,” Manor said.

Wut. Are you a business or a hobby? Actually, even most hobbyists I know are more detail oriented than that.

nyan@nyan@lemmy.cafe

Replying to @⁨AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works⁩

A hobby, apparently, and one she isn’t very serious about, since one local used book store is quite happy to put together 6-8 banker’s boxes of books for my family a couple of times a year and then hold them for pickup. (Needless to say, we don’t destroy them to feed to AI.) Even if you don’t keep an electronic invertory, finding the books should be as simple as following the authors’ names in alphabetical order along the appropriate genre shelf. Putting them in boxes isn’t difficult.

en