In August 2026, a new scandal erupted concerning the ethical norms of artificial intelligence development. Journalists from 404 Media conducted an investigation that confirmed the dark suspicions of bibliophiles and historians: tech giants, specifically Amazon, are buying rare and antique books on the open market not for resale, but for subsequent destruction. The goal of this operation is to extract text content for training neural networks, while the physical carriers of information are subjected to barbaric processing.
Investigation via AirTag: The Book's Path to the Warehouse
To verify the hypothesis of mass destruction of printed editions, journalists used an unconventional tracking method. They approached a book seller and asked to include one copy of a rare edition, to which an Apple AirTag tracker was attached, in a large batch of ordered goods. The route of this copy led the journalists to an Amazon warehouse complex in Las Vegas. According to the investigation data, active work on training AI models is taking place at this facility. Visual confirmation of the warehouse's purpose was found on its door: an image of a T-Rex ready to tear a book to shreds became an ironic, yet accurate reflection of the enterprise's activities.
Mechanics of Destruction and Amazon's Position
The process of processing books in warehouses, such as the VGT3 facility in Las Vegas, is described as extremely aggressive. To facilitate scanning, books are literally torn apart into individual pages. Amazon representatives, commenting on the situation, stated that purchasing books on the open market is necessary for "improving products and services." The company did not go into details about the fate of physical carriers, however, the actual destruction of rare editions gives developers an advantage in the quality of input data for neural networks. While competitors such as Anthropic and xAI have publicly disavowed the use of antique books, Amazon continues this practice, unwilling to publicize the details.
Economic and Personnel Aspects of "Book Eating"
The investigation revealed that the selection of books for procurement is based on scanning ISBN barcodes containing information about the print run. Priority is given to rare editions that may have historical value but have low market liquidity. Book sellers receive significant profit from selling such lots to companies training AI. Inside the warehouses, the situation is also ambiguous: employees of the VGT3 facility discussed the problem of a shortage of books on forums, fearing layoffs if the flow of orders stops. At the same time, the staff does not experience moral qualms about the barbaric treatment of books, noting only the flexible working hours.
Cultural Risks and Public Reaction
The situation has sparked a heated discussion in the professional community and on platforms like Reddit. Critics of the process call it the "washing out" of historical facts from public space. If rare editions are destroyed and their digital content remains in the closed infrastructure of AI providers, access to unique information for researchers and the public may be lost forever. For now, books representing limited monetary value are falling into the "grindstone," but their cultural and historical significance may be disproportionate to the profit from training the neural network.
