Book scraping fight: authors vs Elon's data abundance bet
Writers watch their catalogs get turned into tokens while the abundance crowd calls every text fair game for models
AI companies ingested books for training data without asking. Protect-books camp argues physical copies and libraries still count. Abundance side, citing Elon, says more data means bigger upside for everyone.
Why these scores — Scores reflect single-source quotes from @karlykingsley and @Polymarket with no linked datasets or filings. Side A leans on library framing without usage stats. Side B cites abundance without showing book-specific gains.
Book authors saw their work turned into training tokens with zero notice while model makers treated every title as public fuel.
Side A insists physical books and library access create real value that scraping erases. Side B points to raw scale: more data, better models, eventual abundance that lifts output across the board.
The single-source nature of the claims leaves both positions resting on quotes rather than public training logs or court records.
Books and libraries hold value beyond tokens; scraping them without permission strips that worth from creators and institutions.
- @karlykingsley✓ verified“AI must stop mining books; physical copies and libraries matter.”
All available text improves models and drives future gains; restricting sources slows the benefits that reach everyone.
- @Polymarket✓ verified“Elon says AI will bring amazing abundance from all data sources.”
Read it straight — Pull the actual model cards or court dockets on book ingestion instead of relying on the quoted takes.