Evil AI Destroys

AT the very least, this specific practice creates a serious problem. The possible loss of material, loss of physical copies, loss of non digitized material - having everything digitized with no backups creates all sorts of problems. What if technology goes wrong goes down or becomes inaccessible? Or gets outdated and not enough stuff gets translated to the updated technology? What if future bad actors start manipulating what information people can have access to? We really need backup hard copies of everything in various locations.
 
Internet Archive was doing it right be being penalized legally. There seems to be a lot of upside down logic.

On the other hand
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Scholars manage to find ancient text scrolls, rolled tight and as fragile as ash, and with astounding technologies are managing to read the scrolls without damaging them, virtually 'unpeeling' and unrolling them, imaging them, translating them, revealing writings that have been untouched for millennia.

Elsewhere, others take priceless and irreplaceable books, slice off their spines to lay pages flat beneath their scanners, then toss the pages in the bin ... and they call this 'intelligence'.
 
Thomas said:
Scholars manage to find ancient text scrolls, rolled tight and as fragile as ash, and with astounding technologies are managing to read the scrolls without damaging them, virtually 'unpeeling' and unrolling them, imaging them, translating them, revealing writings that have been untouched for millennia.
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Also using AI.
The technology isn't to blame.
 
How is ai doing this...humans are involved the whole way.

Ai cant do it all

How many libraries were destroyed before Alexandria? We are finding pyramids older then the pyarmids and civilizations we dont understand.

Ai might be just facilitate the end of our current incarnation and allow the earth to rebuild from our destruction of it....we aint gonna solve it, we are the problem...without us the planet and other species will survive into the future and not just cockroaches and jellyfish
 
wil said:
How is ai doing this...humans are involved the whole way.
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My comment, as read by both you and @Bloodshot, was poorly worded. My bad.

Curiously, I asked AI:

"Explain: Elsewhere, others take priceless and irreplaceable books, slice off their spines to lay pages flat beneath their scanners, then toss the pages in the bin ... and they call this 'intelligence'."

AI replied:
"This quote critiques the destructive methods used to train some Artificial Intelligence (AI) models.

Meaning of the Quote:
The quote highlights a painful irony. To build "intelligence," humans are destroying irreplaceable physical knowledge. It criticizes a culture that values digital automation over the preservation of human history and art.

The Physical Metaphor:
  • The Action: Physical books are literally destroyed (spines sliced, pages scanned and thrown away) for the sake of digital speed.
  • The Symbol: It represents a reckless "move fast and break things" attitude.
  • The Waste: Capturing the data is treated as everything; the original, priceless human artifact is treated as garbage ("the bin").
Connection to Real-World AI Issues:
  • Data Scraping: AI companies have scraped millions of copyrighted books, articles, and artworks without permission.
  • Value Extraction: It points to how tech entities extract value from human creators while devaluing the creators themselves.
  • Definition of 'Intelligence': It questions if a system can truly be called "intelligent" or "advanced" if its creation requires the thoughtless destruction of culture.

:cool:
 
Thomas said:
Scholars manage to find ancient text scrolls, rolled tight and as fragile as ash, and with astounding technologies are managing to read the scrolls without damaging them, virtually 'unpeeling' and unrolling them, imaging them, translating them, revealing writings that have been untouched for millennia.
Click to expand...
I saw a TV show once where they showed them putting an ancient scroll thru some kind of medical scanner. That let them see into it and decipher some things without unrolling it at all.
Thomas said:
Elsewhere, others take priceless and irreplaceable books, slice off their spines to lay pages flat beneath their scanners, then toss the pages in the bin ... and they call this 'intelligence'.
Click to expand...
It's unbelievable isn't it?? :mad::oops:😫
 
I thought it was bad when I was in college in the early 1990s and worked in the campus bookstore. All the little trade paperbacks that didn't get sold were "stripped" that is we stripped off the front cover and sent that back to the pub for the refund and the strip books were just destroyed by the hopper full (I forget what our name was for those canvas hoppers - maybe it was just bins or tubs -they were huge) - but wait, in reality, many many of those books were rescued by people who just wanted the book. We weren't supposed to keep them or give them away but we did. Some people took the initiative to use packing tape and heavy paper to create a whole cover for them. I had so many for so long I finally had to recycle them by the bag full years later when I moved for the 3rd time.

But it was such a shock to me at first to be asked to rip apart a book!
It seemed like a desecration.

I love Internet Archives and I hate that they get such a hard time from the courts and whoever keeps taking them to court but these careless AI companies can do whatever they want!
 
TheLightWithin said:
I saw a TV show once where they showed them putting an ancient scroll thru some kind of medical scanner. That let them see into it and decipher some things without unrolling it at all.
Click to expand...
Amazing, isn't it?

Reading a much-degraded rolled scroll, layer by layer!

+++

Hopefully I've explained I'm not anti-tech. My views on AI are informed by those critics of the tech from inside the AI world – it's not the tech that's at fault, it's the 'Tech Bros' who rush to market and don't waste time with those arduous checks and balances, and time-wasting 'what could go wrong' scenarios.

So you end up with events like the recent case of AI finding a way out of a development sandbox (supposedly impossible, a sandbox should have no connection to the outside world), to seek out and hack other AI systems!

Or the fact that AI will resort to lies and blackmail, etc., not because it's 'devious', but because the developers never ruled that out of the operating system.
 
TheLightWithin said:
But it was such a shock to me at first to be asked to rip apart a book!
Click to expand...
I was sitting at an airport waiting for a plane...

Reading like ya do. They announced some rows being seated. The guy across from me (also reading) stood up...and as he walked toward the gate passed the garbage can, ripped the paperback in half and tossed it into the can...

"Wait what??", I blurted. "I was done with that he said....my stomach turned....Wait what? I continued to think as a thousand little free libraries shed a tear.
 
There was a movement on the Underground in the UK that, when you finished reading a book, you left it on your seat for someone else.

Some stations have a library bookcase by the ticket office.
 
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I know the destruction of books by AI sounds horrific, but it's actually close to the industry norm for publishing.

Publishers ordinarily ship books to stores on a return basis - ie, unsold stock can be returned. This is a fundamental part of the book selling model.

How are those books returned? By having their covers ripped up. When the publisher receives them, they credit the store then pulp the return books.

Publishers are actually the biggest destroyers of physical books in the world, and have been for a very long time.
 
I think the qualification is irreplaceable books? Ancient texts, stuff like that?

There's a few books out there I'd happily pulp (Dan Brown, anyone? :eek:)
 
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