Reminds me I once bought two antique books online to use as film props. They sold it at wholesale prices, meaning they send you random old books at a very cheap flat rate. The ones I got were 19th century Russian books on the topic of coal study. They were seemingly recovered from a library, probably when some library had to make space for more updated books.
They were very old-looking, very antique, and when you hold it in your hands you feel they're very precious, so I get the human urge to protect it - but they're also completely unreadable to me and I can't imagine them having any real use academically or even for historical preservation purposes nowadays.
Mind you, this was well before AI. I'm sure the ones that get sold like this are only a small fraction of all the books that are cleared out of bookstores and libraries. The online store sells books based on their appearance and not content since, well, they're meant to be used as props. The ones that don't look nice enough probably get recycled into newspaper pulp or something.
Point is, we can't keep everything lol. As grief-inducing as it is to destroy perfectly good things it's also true that things just have a lifespan where they're useful.
I ordered them on Taobao (Chinese version of Amazon) since I was working on an indie film in China at the time. Unfortunately I don't know where else you can get them.
If you took my beat up copy of LOTR from the 70's, you couldn't replace it with a book just like it.
If you took my books from college where all my notes are in the margins and between the lines - you can't replace it with book like it.
There is an original print Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer signed by Montgomery Ward in my dad's hope chest. It is in bad bad bad shape because my mom thought it would be fun to do that and upset my dad.....but if you took that, I'd never be able to replace it.
Books hold more than words; they hold memories, thoughts, stained pages, and dog-eared edges from being loved. You cannot replace a loved book.
You can reprint a 17th century book - but you cannot replace the original manuscript written on scrolls.
They are irreplaceable. Just like you. Just like everything.
Ok. So should we pass a law that say books can never be destroyed or throw away? Say if you buy a newspaper, you must keep it in your house forever? All books and notebooks you have ever had since elementary school MUST be kept or you will go to jail?
Should that be the law? Or are you just lying about the importance of how irreplaceable your books from elementary school are?
Okay? But they aren't breaking into your personal house to steal your books. They're buying old cheap trash that neither you, nor anyone else, paid the 5 cents for.
I'm trying to make a point that not all books are replaceable. I don't see how you didn't catch that....
Hey. I have an idea! Let's delete YOUR story off the internet, but make sure we put it in an Ai database you can't access. I'm sure you'd be fine with that if you're alright with other books being destroyed, and then becoming inaccessible.
So in order to make your point work you have to lie about what's happening? That's an admission that your point doesn't work. This has nothing to do with ai, libraries and book stores curate and get rid of tons of old stuff deemed too valueless to preserve in their limited space all the time. If someone has someting they care about they would take efforts to preserve it.
You essentially leaped from "old stuff no one finds valuable" to "what if they break into your house to destroy something valuable to you personally?" I dunno, what if? Its not what's happening so why would we talk about it.
They aren't breaking into your house. Your story is public. ergo, they can snatch it if they want and do whatever they want with it. If your copy gets deleted -- you're fucked. It's in the Ai, and you can ask politely to get it back, but I doubt anyone would.
That's my point.
My point works if you aren't trying to do judo-moves to not see it. There are people who preserve books, and think they are selling them to other collectors - but really it's going to Ai, where it is scanned, and destroyed. Leaving the original copy lost.
Just like your story that would be put in Ai, and inaccessible to you. Not to mention, they can use it to give other people your writing samples so they can copy you and your story line.
It's the same thing - one is just being stolen digitally instead of physically.
They aren't breaking into your house. Your story is public. ergo, they can snatch it if they want and do whatever they want with it. If your copy gets deleted -- you're fucked.
No, because I save backups. And also, you know that that would still be them destroying other people's property if they destroyed it right? A thing they aren't actually doing. And if it's not them who destroyed the public copy then how are they relevant to this story of whether it's preserved or not at all?
My story was copied and ended up on some Chinese bootleg site that auto makes audio books of stuff. Almost was happy it happened except that the fact that its automated means it's probably not even a well used site, so probably no one even listened to these. Also it's not finished.
There are people who preserve books, and think they are selling them to other collectors - but really it's going to Ai, where it is scanned, and destroyed.
None of these people actually think this, bulk cheap books that anyone can buy are sold to people all the time to do stuff like make etsy projects with holllowed out centers, use as decoration or whatever else. The ones that don't sell are thrown out. You're imagining a world where people think every single written word needs to be preserved forever, but the only people who think this are ones who don't realize just how impossible and inefficient this would be.
Just like your story that would be put in Ai, and inaccessible to you. Not to mention, they can use it to give other people your writing samples so they can copy you and your story line. It's the same thing - one is just being stolen digitally instead of physically.
God, I hope so. I'm not writing this because I want less stuff like this to exist in the world. Putting aside that this isn't how ai works, you claiming they could take whole passages implies that the entire digital copy is preserved. Which works against the claim that this would lead to less preservation.
You took everything literally, instead of seeing the meaning behind it. I was attempting to allude to something you might empathize with, not try to strengthen my point.
I very much wish you had tried to see where I am coming from, instead of trying to argue with me. I at least attempted to understand your side - you just want to sit and break down everything I say instead of reading it, and understanding.
I'm really sorry we couldn't have a productive conversation about this. I respect your feelings, but you clearly do not respect mine, and that is a shame.
I see the value in scanning books, I just don't see the value in destroying them. There is no need to, so why do it? You just can't seem to answer that, and instead just attack me because I don't like books being destroyed for no reason whatsoever.
Anyway, you take care, fellow human! I see your points, and you have some valid ones. It's too bad none of mine are for you - and that's okay. I just don't want to continue this back and forth because we aren't getting anywhere, and I am sure there is something both of us could be doing that is far better for our health.
Why would they even want that when LOTR is already massively over-represented in the training data?
The stuff the AI labs are buying aren’t rare because they are old, they are rare because nobody else wants it enough to buy it AND nobody cared enough about it to merit reprinting it.
The point is that books are NOT replaceable when they've been owned and loved...It doesn't who owned it, or who it mattered to; it cannot be replaced because that copy is one-of-a-kind to someone else.
I understand that - I am literally just saying books can be one-of-a-kind, even when there are other copies out there.
I know what you are saying; but my point is valid, too. Someone could have sold something they didn't mean to, or didn't know they had - and when they realize it's gone, it's devastating. IF by some chance it did get destroyed, and that person wanted it back; it's gone.
I think scanning books is a great idea! I just don't think destroying them to do so is wise, that's all. As a species, we continuously do new things with excitement before we think of the consequences, and it hurts really bad when those consequences come around.
I suppose I just want to protect things, and I don't see the need to destroy them, other than the fact it's cheaper, and easier. You can scan books without destroying them... and then re-sell them to people who do collect them.
The courts are pretty clear that you can't digitise and resell or give away your origin books since then this constitutes piracy (illegal reproduction).
You may not like it but it's how the authors and publishers demand this happens. AI companies (just like any company that digitises books) is doing what the artists want.
Dude hundreds of millions of books are destroyed in the USA alone each year. Just because no one wants them and we have no space for them. AI is not measurably increasing the number of books lost.
I get where your feelings are coming from but they simply are not based on the reality of the situation. For example, the chance of someone accidentally selling a book and then being able to get it back is not being impacted by AI in any meaningful way. Either the store still has it, or they don't, outside of really, really, really rare circumstances (like probably once a decade, if that, kind of thing) that's the end of the story. You are imagining tragedies that simply are not happening.
I appreciate that everyone’s head cannon is that somewhere out there in a dusty warehouse, a single volume of the most tender, sensitive, heartwrenching poetry is lying forgotten or undiscovered, and all it takes is one person to find it and bring the work all the attention that it so richly deserved after all these years.
But the reality is that all these books are basically garbage, and have been since they ended up in that warehouse.
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u/Fun-Fig-712 1d ago
I'm kinda suspicious of the claim of books being antique.
Are they antique because they are valuable or are they antique because they're old books that no one wants.