We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training Facility
Investigation reveals Amazon buys and destroys massive quantities of printed books, cutting bindings to scan them for AI training data at a Las Vegas warehouse.
A 404 Media investigation tracked a rare book with a GPS device to Amazon's VGT3 warehouse in Las Vegas, revealing an unreported operation buying large volumes of printed books for AI training data. Employees there report cutting bindings off shipments to scan the books quickly, destroying the printed copies in the process. The finding offers rare visibility into how major AI companies acquire print material for training corpora.
- 404 Media placed a tracking device in a rare book sold on to Amazon
- Books are cut at the bindings, scanned, and destroyed at the VGT3 warehouse
- Operation was previously unreported; workers say all received books are scanned
- Vendors
- Amazon
- Products
- Kindle
- Countries
- United States
From the original article
1 min read at 404media.co
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.
By Emanuel Maiberg · 404media.co
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