openmic.social is an uncensored community. You may encounter strong language, controversial opinions, and mature or NSFW material. You must be 18+ to browse. Illegal content is prohibited and removed on sight — please report it. By continuing, you accept that you may see content you personally disagree with.
Where I draw the line for whether it is ethical to light things on fire is when they start destroying rare knowledge and books as fast as possible for no other reason than to hoard and obscure knowledge for private benefit.
It is one thing to fund the creation of knowledge and then hoard it, it is entirely another to begin actively attacking and destroying pre-existing publicly shared resources of knowledge in the pursuit of monetizing access to that very knowledge behind a gargantuan profit motivated entity.
They’re destroying the books because it’s cheaper than scanning them intact.
They’re not acquiring actual knowledge, simply the most likely next word.
They would only need a single copy of each book. They aren’t trying to get all possible copies to prevent others from getting them. They are trying to train their AI as quickly and cheaply as possible