TL;DR: AI companies are secretly buying, scanning, and destroying millions of physical books to train their models, permanently locking human knowledge inside private corporate servers. Anna’s Archive is urgently calling on volunteers worldwide to scan and upload books before this cultural heritage disappears forever.
How else do you think they got the books?
My understanding is, by buying them. But that does not mean they have to do the same. They are filthy rich, they can afford to rebind and donate the books.
But donate them to whom? The books were one step away from the pulpers when they bought them in the first place, who’s going to take them that values them more than that?
Also, these companies are not charities. What do they gain out of all that extra expense?
AI companies are filthy rich (at our expense).
They can afford to donate books.
Once again: “capitalism” is not the answer.
In another comment regarding these books, you said:
So it really seems you’re just insisting on this because you think it will make things harder for them. You don’t care about the books or who they go to in the end.
First, I can not save everyone, nor would I accept the ridiculous moral imposition you attempt that I should to.
Second, I said they can keep the books and also that nothing (except the invented rules of capitalism) prevents them from not only not doing so but also from donating the books to a party dedicated to preserving them, like an archive. I’m also perfectly aware that just because they could do so, that does not make such a generously receiving party automagically exist. Once again, I can’t do all the work. I’d expect someone like them or you would be doing their part, too.