Amazon faces criticism over reported scanning and discarding of rare books for AI training

Amazon is facing criticism after a TechCrunch report, based on a 404 Media investigation, said the company has been buying rare books, removing their bindings, scanning them, and discarding the originals to gather training data for AI models. The reporting described the books as especially valuable because many are out of print or unavailable online, making them useful for large language model training. Amazon said it buys books through commercial channels to improve its products and services, but did not directly address the destruction of the physical copies. The story raises broader concerns about how major tech companies obtain high-quality text for AI and what happens to rare printed works in the process.