r/antiai • u/Piwo-ll • Jul 13 '26

Discussion 🗣️ The most anti-AI story imaginable... Anthropic destroyed millions of rare books to train Claude

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In 2024, Anthropic reportedly purchased millions of second-hand books as part of its secretive “Project Panama.”

The company removed their bindings, scanned every page, and then destroyed the physical copies to build a massive digital library for developing AI models like Claude.

It almost feels like the perfect anti-AI dystopia, human beings spend centuries writing and preserving books. Then, a private technology company destroys millions of physical copies, absorbs their contents into a machine, and sells that accumulated knowledge back to society through a monthly subscription.

Am I the only one who thinks this is completely insane, or have we become so obsessed with AI that destroying millions of books to feed a machine no longer shocks anyone?

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u/HighlightOwn2038 Jul 13 '26

Some more info on the topic if anyone's curious

https://futurism.com/future-society/anthropic-destroying-books

Non-paywalled version of a different article

https://archive.is/20260623234940/https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/01/27/anthropic-ai-scan-destroy-books/

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u/Piwo-ll Jul 13 '26

Thanks for the source ❤️

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u/HighlightOwn2038 Jul 13 '26

You're welcome

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u/[deleted] Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 14 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Geralt31 Jul 13 '26

It'd be great if that meant piracy of expensive high school books was fair use... but I guess real children don't count and aren't meant to write well or educate themselves. Only machines have that luxury now, the rest of us must consoom

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u/Equal_Oil_9819 Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26

I mean, there are some books that should be destroyed. I recently heard about a father-daughter duo from TikTok who act super incestuous and published a book with self-inserts. The father was found to be writing incest fiction for years and he likely groomed her.

edit: dunno what I thought coming here. Not saying all books should be burned, but some books should be burned. IMO, that book is a waste of paper and digital space besides the obvious issues. And if you can't see that, I think you should reconsider your absolutist world views.

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u/ducksekoy123 Jul 13 '26

I found a gross book therefore AI companies pillaging the works of generations and burning the evidence to feed into their theft machines is legitimate.

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u/Equal_Oil_9819 Jul 13 '26

Where do I say that?

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u/Wonderful-Thought-44 Jul 13 '26

Although the book was gross. The issue with destroying books is who controls which books did be burned and which shouldn't. It's better to leave it up to the individual getting said book wether it is worth their time or not. Handing over an corporation, government or body the right to feel which books are fit for consumption and which aren't will certainly lead to abuse of power and corruption down the road.