Taylor Lorenz
@taylorlorenz·276K subscribers·519 videos
Is AI Burning The Library Of Alexandria?
Posted
August 5, 2026
Views
1,822
Likes
214
Comments
42
Engagement
14.05%
August 5, 2026
1,822
214
42
14.05%
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21:33Now PlayingIs AI destroying human literature?
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You might have seen the viral videos of a "book guillotine" slicing the spines off thousands of books in a massive warehouse. Last week, the internet exploded after videos surfaced showing Anthropic cutting the spines off thousands of books to train AI models. Social media quickly filled with claims that AI companies were destroying rare books, erasing human knowledge, and building a future where artificial intelligence replaces libraries.
But is that actually what happened?
In this episode of Power User, I sit down with copyright attorney Derek Slater, who worked on the original Google Books project, to explain why Anthropic is actually scanning books and destroying physical copies afterward, how decades of copyright law (not just AI) created this bizarre situation, and how we can actually save the books!!
We discuss:
Why Anthropic buys books by the pallet
Whether rare books are actually being destroyed
How Google Books handled digitization
Why copyright law incentivizes destroying books
The Internet Archive lawsuits
Fair use and AI training
The future of libraries in the AI era
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