{"slug": "podcast-we-spoke-to-an-amazon-worker-destroying-books-for-ai", "title": "Podcast: We Spoke to an Amazon Worker Destroying Books for AI", "summary": "In a podcast episode, 404 Media's Emanuel spoke to an Amazon warehouse worker who destroys books to train Amazon's AI products, following up on his earlier investigation into Amazon's book scanning practices. The episode also discusses recurring names in LLM output and, for subscribers, ICE's purchase of data about 'voter fraud'.", "body_md": "We start this week with Emanuel’s follow-up to his Amazon book scanning story, in which he spoke to someone who worked in the Amazon warehouse which destroys books to train Amazon’s AI products. After the break, Emanuel and Sam tell us about the same few names appearing in LLM output over and over again. In the subscribers-only section, Joseph tells us why ICE is buying loads of data about ‘voter fraud’.\n\nListen to the weekly podcast on __Apple Podcasts____,__** **[ Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/0F3oY47l2XgoBMaAmIaw29?ref=404media.co), or\n\n[YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@404Mediaco/videos?ref=404media.co). Become a paid subscriber for access to this episode's bonus content and to power our journalism.\n\n**If you become a paid subscriber, check your inbox for an email from our podcast host Transistor for a link to the subscribers-only version! You can also add that subscribers feed to your podcast app of choice and never miss an episode that way. The email should also contain the subscribers-only unlisted YouTube link for the extended video version too. It will also be in the show notes in your podcast player.**", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/podcast-we-spoke-to-an-amazon-worker-destroying-books-for-ai", "canonical_source": "https://www.404media.co/podcast-we-spoke-to-an-amazon-worker-destroying-books-for-ai/", "published_at": "2026-09-02 12:47:45+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-09-02 12:52:43.607026+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-products"], "entities": ["Amazon", "404 Media", "Emanuel", "Sam", "Joseph", "ICE", "Apple Podcasts", "Spotify"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/podcast-we-spoke-to-an-amazon-worker-destroying-books-for-ai", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/podcast-we-spoke-to-an-amazon-worker-destroying-books-for-ai.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/podcast-we-spoke-to-an-amazon-worker-destroying-books-for-ai.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/podcast-we-spoke-to-an-amazon-worker-destroying-books-for-ai.jsonld"}}