{"slug": "tracking-rare-books-leads-to-an-amazon-ai-training-facility", "title": "Tracking Rare Books Leads to an Amazon AI Training Facility", "summary": "Amazon is buying large quantities of printed books, scanning them for AI training data, and destroying the books in the process, according to a 404 Media investigation that tracked a rare book to an Amazon warehouse in Las Vegas, Nevada. Employees at the warehouse, called VGT3, cut bindings off books to scan them faster, and an Amazon spokesperson confirmed the company purchases books through commercial channels to improve its products and services.", "body_md": "alternative_right shares a report from 404 Media: Amazon is buying massive quantities of books, scanning them for AI training data, and destroying them in the process. A 404 Media investigation was able to reveal Amazon's book buying operation, which hasn't been previously reported, by placing a tracking device in a rare book we suspected would be acquired by an AI company for training data, and following it around the country to its final destination. That final destination was an Amazon warehouse in Las Vegas, Nevada.\nAmazon employees who work at this location say all they do is receive massive shipments of printed books which they then cut the bindings off in order to scan the books more quickly. The printed book is destroyed in the process. The logo of the Amazon team that works at this warehouse, called VGT3, is a dinosaur, brandishing its teeth and with a book in its hands. \"Amazon purchases books through commercial channels to help develop and improve the products and services our customers use,\" an Amazon spokesperson told 404 Media in a statement.[Read more of this story](https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/08/17/1644216/tracking-rare-books-leads-to-an-amazon-ai-training-facility?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&utm_medium=feed) at Slashdot.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/tracking-rare-books-leads-to-an-amazon-ai-training-facility", "canonical_source": "https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/08/17/1644216/tracking-rare-books-leads-to-an-amazon-ai-training-facility?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed", "published_at": "2026-08-17 17:00:00+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-08-17 17:11:29.792235+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-infrastructure"], "entities": ["Amazon", "404 Media", "VGT3"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/tracking-rare-books-leads-to-an-amazon-ai-training-facility", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/tracking-rare-books-leads-to-an-amazon-ai-training-facility.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/tracking-rare-books-leads-to-an-amazon-ai-training-facility.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/tracking-rare-books-leads-to-an-amazon-ai-training-facility.jsonld"}}