Destructive scanning of books can be perfectly fine. Books are disposable information delivery vehicles. The idea that books are sacred objects is a fossil of an age long ended.
Feeding scanned books into AI models is not preservation. The information is not intact. It becomes alloyed with other information. So then the only record is the scan. Who holds owns that? Who stores it? Will it be stored even when it is no longer profitable to do so?
I have visions of the book scanner in Vernor Vinge's SF novel "Rainbows End" (a book I love). A machine rips the books up into small pieces, photographs are taken and "AI" software then reads and assembles the pictures to digital files. Vinge didn't write an instruction manual for this process.
pfdietz|28 days ago
krunck|28 days ago
sherr|28 days ago
krunck|28 days ago