Artificial intelligence companies are increasingly turning to physical books, including rare and antique editions, to feed their large language models, creating a booming market for bulk book purchases that is raising concerns about the destruction of scarce literary works, according to a report by 404 Media .
The report says AI companies are buying thousands, and in some cases millions, of used books, scanning their contents into digital datasets and then destroying the physical copies. The practice has gathered momentum as developers seek cleaner, high-quality training material that predates the explosion of AI-generated content online.
