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Tom’s Hardware
Tom’s Hardware
Technology
Zhiye Liu

AI companies are reportedly shredding millions of books after using them to train AI models — tech giants outsource to middlemen to secretly buy up books for training material

Books.

Having contributed to the growing shortage of memory and storage, AI companies seemingly have a new target in their sights: humanity's literary history. A recent investigative report from 404 Media reveals that these companies are reportedly purchasing millions of secondhand books through intermediaries to source high-quality training data for their AI models, avoiding public backlash.

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