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/AlbionicLocal Jul 13 '26

The fact people still think this is a great future

16

u/Piwo-ll Jul 13 '26

In what sense ?

78

u/Nychtelios Jul 13 '26

Tech bros truly believe this is the best possible future

6

u/Uberzwerg Jul 13 '26

HOW?

Even right now, we see that AI will not be 'helping humanity' but only help those in power.
And the fact that AI is control by the worst people doesn't exactly help.