17 August 2026

Amazon destroys rare books at Las Vegas warehouse to train AI models

404 Media tracked a rare book to Amazon's Las Vegas facility using an AirTag, finding workers systematically cut book spines and scan pages for AI training, destroying originals in the process.
Amazon's VGT3 team targets books by ISBN number to ensure comprehensive coverage of unique texts, especially older works unlikely to exist online or contain AI-generated content from before 2022.
Anthropic conducted similar operations through 'Project Panama,' buying and destroying books for training data; a court ruled this qualified as fair use since originals were not resold.
Booksellers lose irreplaceable historical and intellectual value when rare editions are destroyed for private corporate training datasets, with Amazon and other AI firms showing little interest in distinguishing between common and unique works.
Amazon stated it purchases books through commercial channels to improve customer products but did not acknowledge AI training as the purpose, while workers reported the warehouse nearly shut down mid-year due to book supply shortages.