An investigation by 404 Media used a hidden Airtag in a rare book to trace a bulk order to an Amazon AI training facility in Las Vegas, confirming that Amazon is purchasing rare books and destroying them by removing spines for page scanning to train frontier AI models. Amazon declined to specifically address the AI training use but stated it purchases books through commercial channels to improve products. The discovery fuels growing backlash against destructive book scanning practices by AI companies.
Background
AI companies have been increasingly sourcing large volumes of unique physical texts to train frontier models, with publishers and booksellers raising concerns about the destructive nature of this data collection. Amazon is investing heavily in competing frontier AI models alongside Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic, requiring massive amounts of distinctive training data.
- Source
- Ars Technica
- Published
- Aug 18, 2026 at 02:13 AM
- Score
- 8.0 / 10