- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.ml
cross-posted from: https://kbin.earth/m/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com/t/3120649
As AI tech companies increasingly buy and destroy books to feed to their AI models, Anna’s Archive is calling for volunteers to help preserve them for the public record.
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I love where the headline cuts of:
knowledge is permanent - ly monopolized on private servers
Anna’s Archive says ‘time is running out’ as ‘knowledge is permanently monopolized on private servers’
Not only that, of course, but easily edited. It’s a “mandala effect” generator. AKA modern gaslighting. They name the thing, point to legitimate examples, then abuse our new “understanding” to cover their crimes. 1984 indeed.
Oceania was at war with Eurasia; therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia
“mandala” effect
You sure you remember that name correctly?
Dang it, they changed it again!
Getting rid of physical copies of books so we can be monthly subscription slaves, disgusting
It’s worse than that. I’m sure they’re getting wet dreams about eradicating as many books as possible so that they can finally sell AI slop books at a premium price, claiming that will be “the last way to get something in [author] style!”.
I’m rather thinking that hey want to make their slop machines the single source of truth. Much easier to get control over information, when all information is located in your own house.
Fucking scanning books without destroying them, the philistines! /s
Is this gif from that tom hanks movie?
Yeah it’s Toy Story 3
No I know AI companies are doing that, I just don’t think they would be making gifs about it.
But there’s a Tom Hanks movie that came out a few years ago where in the beginning of the movie he lives in a bunker because the UV index outside is so high the sunlight is basically radioactive, and he’s building a robot and he uses a machine to chop the spines off of books to feed them into a scanner to train the robot brain.
That all takes place in the very beginning and then he leaves the bunker with the robot and some shit happens. But that’s what I thought this gif was from.
Finch? Yeah it’s the same machine, just with a fun robot hand to make the sacrilege seem less awful, maybe?
Yeah, that sounds correct
It’s been a while since I’ve seen Toy Story 3…is Al Labs run by the same guy who runs Al’s Toy Barn? Voiced by Wayne Knight (Nedry, Newman…)
I guess the next step is picking specific people to memorize specific books and pass that knowledge down to an assistant/acolyte who will keep the memories alive. Rinse and repeat. Fahrenheit 451 anybody?
seveneves - Sonar Taxlaw
Remember, USA and it’s AI companies did that.
Ah the American dream. Be greedy, selfish and only care about yourself.
“It’s called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it”
George Carlin, RIP
Last time I checked, no other country(apart from Russia) wanted to burn rare books and destroy the world.
Well, there was that one time.in Germany. I wonder if there ate any other similarities with current US “leadership” and those guys.
also christians love a little book burning.
Yet your countries keep helping and benefit almost like this is a global class war.
Nope, none of us are producing the kind of people and companies that would do this
This is the US. It’s peak US as well, with no other like aside from fascists or dictators
texas was supppose to be filled to brim with AI datacenters, until hot wheels so his election chances diminishing, at leas until he wins again,or another R.
I agree about not destroying books, but Anna’s archive is ok with providing all of their info to llms
https://web.archive.org/web/20260305153357/https://annas-archive.gd/blog/llms-txt.html
Not like it’s their books to begin with. It’s all available as torrents
Eh, perfect is the enemy of good. I’ll take the wins we can get. It’s not like having to buy the books is gonna stop the biggest offenders from burning investor money (along with the books).
The defeat of LLMs isn’t gonna come on that front. Let the cultists believe that more words will somehow become more than words. Their silicon gods run on power and water. That’s where they’re most vulnerable.
It’s not necessarily trying to stop them burning the books, just stop their ability to monopolise the knowledge, that’s their aim, lock the knowledge behind a subscription, Anna’s archive will always be available for all, so why pay for their subscription if its available for free.
I was aiming for the poetic parallel between burning money and destroying books, but also, isn’t the difference between destroying the primary source and preventing access to it mostly academic? Either way, as you say, the AI grifters are looking to control that information. Once they do, the original text and knowledge might as well be lost, since we couldn’t verify anything without the original to compare to. Whether through deliberate human manipulation or random word soup mutation, they can’t ever be trusted to deliver a genuine, faithful reproduction of the contents.
And the conclusion is the same: Better to have it freely available for everyone (including the grifters) than the grifters only.
They’ll come for it at some point.
I am all up for starving machine learning of new knowledge but I view this as the least friction path. Otherwise, if the machines try to brute force their entry, what harm can kt cause?
If you read the blog post, they don’t provide help or guidance for regular bookworms on how to scan. No information about what they expect.
Also, flatbed scanning a whole book takes many hours. It’s one page at a time, line up each page, press the book flat and scan, for hundreds of pages.
You’d likely need to buy, or have access to a book scanner. Which is fine, there are cheap models, but who knows if that would work for them? They don’t say. It doesn’t seem like they’re expecting help from you or me.
I was wondering how feasible this is for an average Joe. My assumption was not very, thank you for confirming.
Libraries quite often have book scanners.
These AI companies are just being Nazis, books on pyres…again.
just because it looks similar doesnt mean it is similar you thetralic midwit
Hey, there’s some corporate boots that need licking, get to it.
Similar: having characteristics in common.
Looking similar does mean that two things are similar. You could have tried to make your point in a variety of ways, but you chose the way that can be countered by simply understanding English.
0/10
Okay I’ll give you a hint. The bad thing about the nazis burning books wasn’t that they were destroying physical copies of books. I’ll give you a few keywords intent, selection, political control
Why be condescending now?
You already fucked up the point you were making. By all means, insult people’s intelligence at the start of the conversation, before you fuck up. Doing it at the same time as fucking up looks bad… but insults after you fuck up looks even worse.
I own some rare books but no book scanner. What should I do?
Those who want to conduct large-scale scans and upload many titles can reach out to the archive for support, as the archive says that it “can help pay for the scanning fees and other rewards.”
Hmm, it’s just a few books but I do think they’re pretty rare. Not something I’m willing to send away. I wonder if a library would be willing to help?
My local library has some large format scanners. I’ve considered using them to do my photo albums. I have the individual photos scanned and backed up, but the layout and margin notes are worth preserving also.
If you’ve got some comfort with tinkering:
Super outdated and the guide doesn’t work
If your local library doesn’t own a book scanner, any colleges near you may have one. You usually don’t have to be a student to walk into the library, and the book scanners I’ve used don’t require a login. YMMV on whether this is how it’s set up where you are.
I might try this. Im concerned that some of the books may still be under copyright. Not all of my rare books are that old. I collect indie poetry books and comics as well as old religious texts/pamphlets.
Also concerned that some might be literally some of the only remaining copies and I really don’t want to risk damaging them.
Any reputable orgs I can donate to for assisting the cause? I just don’t feel I have the means otherwise to make a dent in the buying and preservation.
Perhaps there is a public library in your area that accepts donations? The one I live by is STARVING for support, they accept books, old computers, anything.
They do good work for the community too, like free tech literacy classes, chess for kids, etc.
But if you are dead set on an online NGO, then maybe archive.org? You have probably heard about their Wayback Machine, but they preserve books and other media too.
Ahh, good call. On it. Thanks!
They’re destroying everything like locusts
Yall keep overreacting to this bs, what’s even a rare book with no other copies, every article I saw says the books were scheduled to be destroyed or taken to a dump, and those are the books they are swooping up. I have a feeling rare means like 1st edition or one with typos or some sht. These are books ppl already weren’t buying that they are grabving in mass. All knowledge and all books aren’t important, plenty of below average intelligence ppl dropping slop long before ai became a thing. Any book that you value obviously already has tons of physical copies and digital backups.
This isn’t them looting some ancient libraries/museums taking some hidden/secret knowledge from humanity like yall are making up in your heads.
every article I saw says the books were scheduled to be destroyed or taken to a dump
Do you have a source for this? Because I’ve seen literally nothing about this being the way books are being sourced. And no offense but this reads way too close to weasel words. For example: Every article I’ve read on the subject says my pants are sentient and enjoys my legs being in them. Also, I’ve read no articles on the subject so that isn’t a lie.
Fair point. Beside the point, is it technically correct to make a positive assertion about a negative thing — only because any positive assertion about that negative thing is inherently part of an empty set?
Meaning like… our logic technically rules based on “no available contradictions, even if there is no evidence” as opposed to “at least one evidence is required?”
In certain situations I’d agree that the absence of contradiction is evidence enough, but those situations are pretty specific. For example, we don’t have absolute proof that orange juice doesn’t cause cancer, our “proof” comes from the lack of reliable evidence showing that it does, along with relevant research. But that doesn’t mean every claim can be treated the same way. But that doesn’t mean every claim can be treated the same way, especially a claim based only on “every article I saw,” without a source being provided.
every article I saw says the books were scheduled to be destroyed or taken to a dump, and those are the books they are swooping up.
Sounds like propaganda to me.
Sorry, I’m having trouble understanding what you’re saying with those boots in your mouth.
Okay hero, defend us all with your words on a social media site with maybe 40,000 ppl max that do nothing, keyboard activists to the rescue
Get mad, bro. 😌
Take your feelings and shove them up your ass clanker
Anyone know any good book scanners was looking around and not sure what i should get.
Ages ago I had mimicked the “overhead scanner” with a mounted digital camera, but now I’d go with a mounted smartphone + light bars + bluetooth photo trigger. Scrolling through Bezos’ was pretty depressing in terms of cost/quality and even a $150 device seemed like a repurposed webcam, with a sole non-free confirmed buyer saying it died after 3 months while freebies praise it lol. As long as you don’t scan drawings/designs/comic books - just set lights evenly and that’d be enough, and even moreso if you OCR it and turn a scan into an e-book where visual fidelity stops to matter.
same, probably when I’ll have time in an other dimension I would love to make my own
i would help you in that dimension as well lol
I don’t know about buying, but the ones I have seen basically hold the book open at a 45 degreeish angle, to not damage the spine. Then you press the pages with a 45 degree set of glass plates. The actual “scan” is a camera of some kind that slodes back.and forth between the two halves on a mount.
Yeah the edge flat beds was what I was looking at. Which sounds close?
So, my question is, of all these books being scanned and then destroyed, aren’t there many more copies of these books? And BTW, knowledge isn’t permanent. It can be lost.
deleted by creator
When someone can’t answer a question a common response to change the subject. Do you have an answer to my question?
They just cut and bin the books after they’ve been scanned, the bins are taken to the local disposal, most municipalities have a garbage dump, some burn the trash.
An ai trained on unique data is more valuable if you don’t share the data it was trained on to your competition, your LLM gains an edge.
If I found a unique handwritten book from the 18th century, than I proceed to read it and memorise then burn it, I’ll be the only one to posses the knowledge of it.
There are very few, if any, rare, one of a kind books that would go through this process. If one of these books were scanned for an LLM it would be done delicately in a more time consuming manner and the book would be returned.
