Sam Smith

[Barbarian Herodotus @BBHerodotus]

After seeing a post on it yesterday, I’ve looked more deeply into Anthropic’s purchasing and destruction of millions of used books.

They spent tens of millions of dollars acquiring and destroying books to train their AI model, Claude.

They knew, from the beginning that it would be unpopular. They knew what they were doing, was wrong.

An internal memo from 2024 stated:

“Project Panama is our effort to destructively scan all the books in the world.”

“We don’t want it to be known that we are working on this.”

Why used books?

Companies like Anthropic and Meta found it impractical to gain permission from authors and publishers to use their work.

So instead, they stole their work to train their product through mass purchases of used books and through pirating them from the internet.

The authors of these works, didn’t receive a dime for their efforts. These companies stole the hard won literary talent of others to train machines to replace the victims of their theft.

Anthropic cofounder Ben Mann personally downloaded countless books for this purpose from LibGen, a book pirating website.

When a new book piracy website debuted in 2022, Mann sent an email sharing the link with his employees stating: “just in time!!!”

Meta employees were wary about the piracy of books, with one engineer writing, “Torrenting from a corporate laptop doesn’t feel right.”

Anthropic purchased millions of books, in batches of tens of thousands from Better World Books and U.K.-based World of Books.

They then used a “hydraulic powered cutting machine” to slice off the spines of these books before scanning them. Finally, the remains of these books were picked up for recycling.

Feel free to use AI, it’s a free country.

But remember that, if you use Claude, that Anthropic has committed a great wrong, and they knew that they were doing it from the beginning.

Below is an image, from a court case, of a warehouse full of used books, that instead of being held and read by you and your children, have been destroyed forever.

AI is inevitable, but spend your money on the companies who do good, and do not knowingly commit evils.

May the most moral company win.

[Sue Perkins 💙 @sueperkins]

One last thing: your personal mandate, @borisjohnson , is 7,210.
Not 14 million. Please learn how our political system works, then leave it.

[Sam Smith @SamYesFam]

@beth_rylance You go girl!

[Molly-jo Weldon @MollyjoWeldon1]

A small picture story from #BLMLondon 12/06/20 #BlackLivesMatterUK #londonprotest #LondonBLM

[Sam Smith @SamYesFam]

@BBCWorld @BBCNews

#AmazonFire

Get your shit together, and run the story. Properly, at the top of broadcasts not just as a web piece.

You have a responsibility as a public service broadcaster. It’s time you step up.

[Ben See @ClimateBen]

Remember:

1. The Amazon is burning
2. The Arctic's on fire
3. The Oceans are boiling
4. The Coral reefs are dying
5. Greenland is melting
6. Permafrost is collapsing
7. Antarctica is heating
8. Ecosystems are crashing
9. Earth is turning to desert
10. Emissions are accelerating

[Sam Smith @SamYesFam]

#AmazonFire

@BBCNews @BBCWorld @BBCBreaking GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER...

[ian bremmer @ianbremmer]

The Amazon rainforest, which produces 20% of the oxygen in the Earth’s atmosphere, on fire

[Sam Smith @SamYesFam]

@BBCNews running a story about the titanic on the 10 o'clock news. Everyone who cares about that is dead. It hasn't been news since 1912.

Run a story about on fires in the Amazon Rain-forest or those in Siberia.

#AmazonFire #Siberianfires #publicservice #responsibility

[Sam Smith @SamYesFam]

@elonmusk

Fancy saving the amazon rain-forest dude?

I asked @JeffBezos already, purely for the poetry of his company taking its name from the river / region...

But maybe you've got some bright ideas?

[Sam Smith @SamYesFam]

@JeffBezos I thought the poetry of saving the @amazon rain-forest would appeal to you.

[Sam Smith @SamYesFam]

@JeffBezos

Get your wallet out pal.

Please, or we might all die.

K thnx bye xx

[Sam Smith @SamYesFam]

@BBCBreaking @BBCWorld

You have a responsibility as a public service broadcaster. Rise to it.

[Caius Pupus @QuiTuSuisJe]

#PrayforAmazonas
Amazonia burning : Not interesting...
Building Notre-Dame burning : 24/7 information

[Sam Smith @SamYesFam]

@eugenegu @BBCWorld @BBCBreaking @itvnews @ABC @NBCNews

GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER

[Sam Smith @SamYesFam]

@lb_southwark Can you please collect our bins once a week instead of once a fortnight? With the hot weather it's very unhygienic to have rotting waste piled left for 2 weeks. They should really be collected more regularly anyway. We're paying enough council tax.

[Sam Smith @SamYesFam]

https://t.co/shsL4CIyIG

[Sam Smith @SamYesFam]

@DenchenThe @WhovianLeap Why on earth would you not be?

[Sam Smith @SamYesFam]

@mattymcewan Who the fuck are you bruv?

[Sam Smith @SamYesFam]

@BeattyLaw @ChesterP_TF Yeah, unless you are the victim of a serious crime. Or witness a rape or a murder or something... the police probs useful for that no?

[Sam Smith @SamYesFam]

Go home America. You're drunk.

[Sam Smith @SamYesFam]

@SenorPeludo @donwill Fuck yes