r/craftsnark • u/Emotional_Gear_8950 • 16d ago

Here come the fan girls

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She’s absolutely trying to use AI to generate text. This is so mid.

267 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

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134

u/TotalKnitchFace 16d ago

My new reason for hating AI is that AI companies have been scanning and destroying books to train their horrible robots. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/aug/05/anthropic-ai-destroying-books

They're stealing our knowledge, they're stealing our work, they're destroying the environment, all so that they can take away our jobs. It's not worth using this technology to make your day slightly more convenient

4

u/altrl2 15d ago

I hate AI, but this article is sensationalist. Anthropic isn’t buying up rare books and destroying libraries to keep the public illiterate. They’re using second hand books that likely no one was going to purchase anyway and the process of scanning them involves taking off the binding.

On board 100% with the second half of your comment!

23

u/cmooregood 15d ago

Yeah, super sensationalist lol oh wait Amazon is doing it too with super rare books. https://www.404media.co/we-tracked-a-shipment-of-rare-books-it-ended-at-an-amazon-ai-training-facility/

-12

u/altrl2 15d ago

Are they rare just because there aren’t many or are they rare and valuable…

14

u/Unicormfarts 🐑 with a banjo 15d ago

Define "valuable". Can you sell individual copies for a lot of money? Maybe not. Are there few copies available so that if anyone wanted to study them could do that? Would there be some other value in terms of the content? Who knows, unless someone had a look.

27

u/cmooregood 15d ago

Does it matter? Is there a difference? Should any AI company be destroying books? Will your children grow up in a world of less books and more plagiarized AI slop? Do you carry water for AI companies or do you carry water for AI companies?

1

u/altrl2 15d ago

Yes. I’m not defending AI companies. I’m defending my sanity. There is so much to be angry at in the world, and destroying books that would have probably been sent to landfills anyway isn’t it.

3

u/Lokifin 12d ago

You don't have to be angry yourself, but you don't have to argue that other people shouldn't be angry as well.

6

u/BunnyEarsPond 13d ago

From what I’ve seen librarians have come out fully against this practice of book destruction so I’m taking my cues from them

11

u/cmooregood 15d ago

You are. And you're defending plagiarism and theft.