In the filings, Anthropic states, as reported by the Washington Post: “Project Panama is our effort to destructively scan all the books in the world. We don’t want it to be known that we are working on this.”

  • ToTheGraveMyLove@sh.itjust.works
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    16 hours ago

    That much was absolutely is something to get worked up about. Just because it happens more than people realize, that doesn’t make it okay.

    • astro@leminal.space
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      16 hours ago

      Words and ideas don’t become sacred when they are committed to paper. Unless they destroyed the last copy of something that has not been digitized, this is totally fine.

      • CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social
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        15 hours ago

        Sure, but it is rather a waste of paper, ink, manufacturing and transportation capacity etc. It’s not the only instance of this of course, waste of unsold inventory exists in just about any industry that sells physical products, but it’s still frustrating to see it.

        • astro@leminal.space
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          13 hours ago

          This seems more like an indictment of the practice of physical publishing than destructive book scanning, in which case I generally agree. There are a host of industries with baked-in inefficiencies that our life experiences have conditioned us to accept as normal or unavoidable when really have no business persisting in the modern world. Printed books is definitely one of them.

          • CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social
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            12 hours ago

            I wouldn’t say print books have no place today, it can’t be assumed that one will have access to electronics in all circumstances after all and many people do prefer physical media, but it’s definitely an indictment of the sort of cheaply made basically disposable books made in larger quantities than needed to fill their current niche, and of the way unwanted (by their owners) but usable goods are dealt with in general.

            • astro@leminal.space
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              11 hours ago

              Yeah, you’re right to clarify that, saying printed word has absolutely no place is hyperbolic and wrong. In cases where it is necessary to maintain parity of information access, paper is fine.

      • ToTheGraveMyLove@sh.itjust.works
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        13 hours ago

        I didn’t say words were sacred, but destroying millions of books is a colossal waste of resources. This is not totally fine.

        • astro@leminal.space
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          12 hours ago

          The resources were wasted by the publishers when they transformed the resources into a finished product with very limited utility and reusability. Books on shelves are not resources.

            • astro@leminal.space
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              11 hours ago

              No, I won’t stop calling things like I see them, and I am unlikely to see them differently unless presented with an actual argument (premise, claim, evidence, impact) that amounts to more than “no u”