Archive · 18 Aug 2026
AI firms buy second-hand books for destructive scanning surge
Computers that write like humans need lots of books to learn from.
Some companies that make these computers are buying old books to read them.
A company called Anthropic has a secret project called Project Panama.
In this project, they buy many books, mostly used ones, and scan them.
Scanning the books is destructive because the book spines are ripped off.
The pages are scanned very fast and the leftover parts are recycled.
This is why used book sellers in the UK are suddenly selling more books.
The internet is full of low-quality computer-written text, so books are seen as better sources of knowledge.
Even though selling more books sounds good, the publishing industry is still struggling.
The books are being destroyed to feed the computers, which is a sad fate for them.
Second-hand booksellers in the UK report a sudden surge in sales of pre-owned books.
AI firm Anthropic's 'Project Panama' involves large-scale buying and scanning of books, mostly second-hand.
Books are consumed through 'destructive' scanning, with spines ripped off for rapid page scanning and remains recycled.
The book-buying surge comes while the publishing industry is in a slump.
AI slop flooding the internet has made it a low-quality source of information, driving demand for books as training data.
- Who
- AI firm Anthropic and second-hand booksellers in the UK
- What
- Large-scale buying and destructive scanning of second-hand books for AI training data
- When
- Recently, following revelations about Anthropic's 'Project Panama'
- Where
- United Kingdom
- Why
- AI slop flooding the internet has made it a low-quality source of information, so books are needed as high-quality training material
- AI company
- Anthropic
- Project name
- Project Panama
- Location
- United Kingdom
- Purpose
- Large-scale buying and scanning of books for AI training
- Scanning method
- Destructive scanning with spines ripped off
- Book type targeted
- Mostly second-hand books
- Industry context
- Publishing industry in a slump