{"slug": "ai-companies-are-scanning-and-destroying-old-books", "title": "AI companies are scanning and destroying old books", "summary": "AI companies are buying old books, scanning them, and destroying the physical copies to obtain training data free of AI-generated content, according to a report by 404 Media. The program is facilitated by ISBNdb, which helps companies purchase vintage books in bulk with the pitch: 'The world's best AI training data is sitting on a shelf.'", "body_md": "AI companies are [buying old books, scanning them and destroying the remains](https://www.404media.co/ai-companies-are-buying-tons-of-old-books-because-theyre-free-of-ai-slop/), writes Emanuel Maiberg at 404 Media. The program is enabled by ISBNdb, maintainers of a vast book database, which helps them buy vintage physical media in bulk: \"The world's best AI training data is sitting on a shelf,\" its pitch reads. — [Read the rest ](https://boingboing.net/2026/07/30/ai-companies-are-scanning-and-destroying-old-books.html)\n\nThe post [AI companies are scanning and destroying old books](https://boingboing.net/2026/07/30/ai-companies-are-scanning-and-destroying-old-books.html) appeared first on [Boing Boing](https://boingboing.net).", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ai-companies-are-scanning-and-destroying-old-books", "canonical_source": "https://boingboing.net/2026/07/30/ai-companies-are-scanning-and-destroying-old-books.html", "published_at": "2026-07-30 11:53:22+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-30 12:44:58.196986+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-ethics", "ai-research"], "entities": ["404 Media", "ISBNdb", "Emanuel Maiberg", "Boing Boing"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ai-companies-are-scanning-and-destroying-old-books", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ai-companies-are-scanning-and-destroying-old-books.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ai-companies-are-scanning-and-destroying-old-books.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/ai-companies-are-scanning-and-destroying-old-books.jsonld"}}