AI companies are now destroying warehouses full of rare books
AI companies are now destroying warehouses full of rare books
The damage caused by the AI regime has yet to be fully realized.Gardiner Bryant (The Bryant Review)
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The damage caused by the AI regime has yet to be fully realized.Gardiner Bryant (The Bryant Review)
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vext01
in reply to PerfectDark • • •Not nice to see books being destroyed, but this part, I'm sure, will upset people:
For some people the choice to use a bot or not is a choice of having the job, or not.
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PerfectDark
in reply to vext01 • • •That would be Gardiner's side of the article. I contributed by wroting two sections on this one:
Just to explain whose take is whose for this little article, at least.
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wakko
in reply to vext01 • • •Going to work for yourself is always an option. Ask any street busker. Insinuating it isn't is your complicity.
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vext01
in reply to wakko • • •Technology reshared this.
wakko
in reply to vext01 • • •Oh dear. The consequences of ones own choices. It's almost like you're trying to dictate the creature comforts of your cell, not eliminate the imprisonment entirely.
Maybe you should think real hard about the asymmetry in your position.
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KaChilde
in reply to wakko • • •“Daddy, why can’t we eat dinner this week?”
Listen up sweetie, Daddy had to leave his job because they wanted him to use Claude to generate a spreadsheet. It was the only way to destroy our billionaire overlords from the inside. You’ll thank me when you’re older, now keep packing your things, we have until Friday before the landlord calls the police to forcibly evict us.
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wakko
in reply to KaChilde • • •"Daddy, why does everyone work until they die? Why is the sky filled with satellite debris? Why is the water poison? Why are there no more winters?"
"Well, Daddy needs a paycheck because Daddy was prioritizing creature comforts and sold himself into wage slavery. Daddy's been voting in favor of Corporatist entrenchment for decades. Daddy would rather have his Amazon Prime than be uncomfortable living without his consumerist devices to distract him from what his choices are doing to the planet."
"Daddy's also been selling your eyeballs to advertisers since before you could form coherent thoughts because he'd rather let the iPad babysit you than be a real parent. Daddy's too busy doomscrolling Pornhub."
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fruitycoder
in reply to wakko • • •Creating stability for ourselves and loved ones really can be demanding and force us into positions that make impossible to be as ethical as we'd want to be.
That said it is crazy how many people in the "first world" view themselves in that category while the demands they have are "a room and bathroom per person in the household", keeping the house 69 during the summer and 72 during the winter, a new 1000 dollar phone a year or two, a game system or two total a few k, a newer car because they're last one is just over 80k miles, several subscriptions to constant instant entertainment, etc.
Like yes, there really are people that have to beg for more hours to keep a two bed room for themselves and their kids, those people don't really have a choice. They are also the rest of us that really can just have a little less "treats" and be perfectly fine.
terabyterex
in reply to vext01 • • •Technology reshared this.
Leon
in reply to vext01 • • •I don't know that that's a bad thing. If you use these models, you are complicit; you're part of creating the "need" for these models. You don't necessarily have a choice (because realistically losing your job and all the stuff that entails isn't a real choice, and that's fully part of how the system is intended to work), but you're still complicit.
We as individuals don't have a lot of power, because power is mostly tied to some kind of capital. That's why working together is so important, because it's only by working together we'll have any real power to impact things.
I don't think being upset is a bad thing. Recognise it, and do something about it. It could be something small like talking to colleagues about it, or contacting a union representative, or a politician. Or go big, no shame in that either.
gravitas_deficiency
in reply to Leon • • •Leon
in reply to gravitas_deficiency • • •Exactly, it's built on systemic violence, in that when you don't have a job you're rendered more or less useless to society and left to wither by the wayside. Thus it is in the individuals immediate best interest to keep working with, thus enforcing these systems.
Worrying about anything beyond the immediate is for those with means, unfortunately.
I live in Sweden. I grew up a povvo bitch, but I've managed to do well for myself over the years. Even so, I don't have anything to fall back on. If I lost my job I'd luckily have unemployment, through my union and various labour rights, but that too has a limit.
I get why people wouldn't want to fight back, which is what leads to doomerism and wishes to just burn the entire system to the ground in the hopes of building something better next time. Which I get too, I feel that all the time; improvement seems unlikely given the perpetual decline I've witnessed my entire life. Even so, I contact politicians, and I engage with my union.
Jax
in reply to Leon • • •To be fair, I'm sure there were plenty of people who lived in the late Roman, late Byzantine, and late Ottoman empires who felt the same way.
TrackinDaKraken
in reply to PerfectDark • • •Not AI Companies, but billionaires. They have names, they're people, and we shouldn't let them hide behind "company". These are some of the people fucking us all over for nothing but their own hubris. They have too much power and money, they're delusional, and they need to be taxed, regulated, and stopped:
Sam Altman, Open AI
Sundar Pichai, Alphabet, Google
Clay Magouyrk, Oracle
Mark Zuckerberg, Meta, Facebook
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zuch0698o
in reply to TrackinDaKraken • • •Technology reshared this.
msage
in reply to TrackinDaKraken • • •FlashMobOfOne
in reply to PerfectDark • • •like this
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BouteilleBrune
in reply to PerfectDark • • •Technology reshared this.
Carlos Solís
in reply to PerfectDark • •❌ Destroying the books
✔️ ...to fully digitize them
❌ ...and hoard the data in their systems
How do they manage to screw things twice in a row?
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Valmond
in reply to PerfectDark • • •Any examples of those rare books?
Edit: of course not, what an absolute shit article. "If you don't dislike trashing a book you're a bad person!!!" Basically. What an ignorant idea. The article linked in the first "article" (the first contains 0 information) isn't much better, large companies buy books nobody wants, scans them and discards them.
Guess what librarians worldwide do? Well they don't scan the books before sending them for recycling.
So an overly emotional trash headline to generate that sweet anger and engagement IMO.
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PattyMcB
in reply to Valmond • • •They have a video in the article showing some books being destroyed (although, granted, dictionaries are not "rare" but I'm sure some rare texts have been destroyed in this process).
And as others have pointed out, they could easily publish the digital copies for other uses as a preservation measure.
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Valmond
in reply to PattyMcB • • •Tim_Bisley
in reply to Valmond • • •Still plenty to be pissed about though. As someone who does archiving it's still enraging because they are destroying thousands of books not for archival where you destroy one copy to provide access to all, but to copy the book, rewrite it, and sell it back to you.
There's now less copies of said book, it wasn't archived, they stole that content, and are now selling it back to you. People will then take this stolen content and act like it's something they created and then try to turn profit. It makes every copyright argument the publishers have ever made look like a joke. Why do publishing companies even exist?
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waveyvibes
in reply to Valmond • • •CovertOperative
in reply to waveyvibes • • •The first time I heard about this was from this article: srf.ch/kultur/gesellschaft-religion/jagd-auf-alte-buecher-ki-firmen-kaufen-antiquariate-leer-und-ver…
A translated quote from it:
That article still tries to frame this as "Rare antique books are going to be lost forever".
Jagd auf alte Bücher - KI-Firmen kaufen Antiquariate leer – und vernichten die Bücher
Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen (SRF)waveyvibes
in reply to CovertOperative • • •givesomefucks
in reply to PerfectDark • • •It's really getting old how many people are starting to act like trump. And just assume if they just heard about something, no one else has.
It sounds like a minor thing, but it's a huge red flag that people don't have base levels of empathy.
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a1tsca13
in reply to givesomefucks • • •Technology reshared this.
givesomefucks
in reply to a1tsca13 • • •Yeah. And you can easily phrase a headline like that...
That it had been going on for a while and people should pay attention...
But they didn't.
Which is why I mentioned it.
Edit:
For example:
lemmy.world/post/50060570?scrollToComments=true
There is a difference between headlines, and it shouldn't be surprising the major network is more professional and accurate than a blog.
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Clippy
in reply to PerfectDark • • •Technology reshared this.
PerfectDark
in reply to Clippy • • •Technology reshared this.
Modern_medicine_isnt
in reply to PerfectDark • • •Now I don't like them destroying books in general, but I suspect the word rare in this article is likely not what most people would actually call rare.
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GreenKnight23
in reply to Modern_medicine_isnt • • •Modern_medicine_isnt
in reply to GreenKnight23 • • •And if it is not a collectable book, why?
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BaraCoded
in reply to PerfectDark • • •floofloof
in reply to PerfectDark • • •Capitalism always creates perverse incentives. The most profitable thing you can do is seize something readily available and make it impossible to get without paying you.
But which companies are doing this? It sounds like these are companies that supply training data to AI companies. I think we need names.
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kbobabob
in reply to floofloof • • •dil
in reply to kbobabob • • •yetAnotherUser
in reply to dil • • •fruitycoder
in reply to kbobabob • • •kbobabob
in reply to fruitycoder • • •Here you go
newsnationnow.com/entertainment-news/entertainment-headlines/ap-judge-rules-ai-company-anthropic-did…
fruitycoder
in reply to kbobabob • • •Dejected Warp Core
in reply to floofloof • • •I misread that as:
... and realized that also tracks.
zbyte64
in reply to floofloof • • •HerbGrower
in reply to floofloof • • •ExFed
in reply to PerfectDark • • •This is probably going to be an unpopular comment... but these articles are all super misleading. The physical books are getting destroyed, but their content is getting digitized. Is that a loss? Absolutely. But is there a benefit? Also yes.
The biggest loss is probably the fact that destroying the physical books removes them from circulation, making them essentially permanent additions to these companies' book collections.
scintilla
in reply to ExFed • • •like this
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Bob Robertson IX
in reply to ExFed • • •And these are books that have been sitting in warehouses that haven't been able to be sold because no one wanted them. They were removed from circulation long ago.
Senal
in reply to Bob Robertson IX • • •They aren't in current circulation, not the same thing.
Not arguing that they are useful, just that sitting in a warehouse and physical destruction aren't equivalent in terms of potential use.
Bob Robertson IX
in reply to Senal • • •That's true, but sitting in a warehouse is costing someone money and I'm sure they were more than happy to sell the books even if they knew they'd eventually get destroyed.
But the other thing is, what should these companies do instead? They scraped the internet and got skewered for that. They pirated books and got in trouble for that. Now they are legally purchasing books to scan. They can't donate or sell the books since they've effectively copied the book and that would get them into piracy trouble again.
Senal
in reply to Bob Robertson IX • • •Sure, thats a possibility, I wasnt arguing otherwise.
For me, them doing sketchy and illegal shit, mostly getting away with it and then charging you for access to said ill-gotten gains is a valid reason for people to be upset at them, rage inducing, even.
That aside the equivalent of mass book burning isn't a good look regardless of legality, even less so when its the same people that did the sketchy shit before.
There is no benefit of the doubt left.
I can see how someone could get to:
"all they do is sketchy shit so even though this might look legit, let's vocally show our disdain for them and anything they are doing"
Bob Robertson IX
in reply to Senal • • •Senal
in reply to Bob Robertson IX • • •What do you mean instead? why is what they are doing now insufficient ?
At this point i doubt they give a fuck what the general populace thinks, unless it affects their bottom line.
But you seem to want an answer, so let's work through the "options"
This would depend on what their goals are.
Assuming they want to continue with their track record of maximum capitalism, their best option is to eat shit, and by that i mean do whatever the fuck they want and ignore anything that isn't inline with profit/control.
Complaints from the populace, sure.
Maximum profits, also yes.
If they really want to stop people complaining about them their best best would be to stop doing sketchy, illegal and unpopular things.
That wouldn't stop all complaints, this is the internet, but it would probably bring it down quite a bit.
if they wanted partially rehabilitate their image over this specific instance of terrible PR, they could:
- Release the data of the scanned books directly.
- if they can afford the lobbying and
... Mostrar másWhat do you mean instead? why is what they are doing now insufficient ?
At this point i doubt they give a fuck what the general populace thinks, unless it affects their bottom line.
But you seem to want an answer, so let's work through the "options"
This would depend on what their goals are.
Assuming they want to continue with their track record of maximum capitalism, their best option is to eat shit, and by that i mean do whatever the fuck they want and ignore anything that isn't inline with profit/control.
Complaints from the populace, sure.
Maximum profits, also yes.
If they really want to stop people complaining about them their best best would be to stop doing sketchy, illegal and unpopular things.
That wouldn't stop all complaints, this is the internet, but it would probably bring it down quite a bit.
if they wanted partially rehabilitate their image over this specific instance of terrible PR, they could:
*1,
"Environment destroying slop-machine"
&
"Useful tool in some circumstances, as long as you can personally square away the ethical and moral concerns"
aren't mutually exclusive, if this is the hill you choose to die on you're going to die mad about it.
Jo Miran
in reply to PerfectDark • • •AuthenticSchedule
in reply to PerfectDark • • •FiniteBanjo
in reply to PerfectDark • • •It would be slightly less horrrible if they released the digitized books online, or even just paid archivist organizations to carefully do the job for them and make public the works to then train on.
But no. They choose the worst way to do everything.
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wonderingwanderer
in reply to FiniteBanjo • • •FiniteBanjo
in reply to wonderingwanderer • • •foreignpolicy.com/2019/12/11/china-burning-book-censorship-online-outrage/
Welcome to humanity
Why Is China Burning Books?
James Palmer (Foreign Policy)wonderingwanderer
in reply to FiniteBanjo • • •FiniteBanjo
in reply to wonderingwanderer • • •iglou
in reply to FiniteBanjo • • •WorldsDumbestMan
in reply to wonderingwanderer • • •Even really evil people respect knowledge.
These aren't people.
Asetru
in reply to wonderingwanderer • • •wonderingwanderer
in reply to Asetru • • •Of course it's an ideology, but it's the ideology that enables the greed. The greed would exist with or without it.
When billionaire oligarchs destroy the planet and people's lives in order to make themselves richer, they're not doing it on ideological ground. Most of them don't care about ideology. Their ideology is just how they brainwash the public into voting for politicians who will help them continue to dominate the economy.
trackball_fetish
in reply to FiniteBanjo • • •marius
in reply to PerfectDark • • •Ajen
in reply to marius • • •NewOldGuard
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in reply to PerfectDark • • •mangobanana
in reply to PerfectDark • • •katze
in reply to PerfectDark • • •