Advocates Urge FTC Probe Into AI 'Hoard and Destroy' Book Practices

The Demand Progress Education Fund, leading the push for oversight, cites an internal Anthropic memo dubbed "Project Panama." The document outlines a clandestine effort to "destructively scan all the books in the world," warning employees to avoid public discussion of the initiative. Court records reveal that vendors employed hydraulic cutting machines to strip bindings from volumes before sending the remains to recycling, a process reportedly mirrored by Amazon in its own large-scale acquisition operations.

Beyond simple digitization, critics argue these practices create an artificial scarcity by cornering non-reproducible inputs. Intermediaries like ISBNdb are allegedly facilitating anonymous bulk orders, including rare out-of-print titles, to feed proprietary databases. Kate Oh, special adviser to the Demand Progress Education Fund, characterized the strategy as a reckless attempt to wall off human knowledge behind corporate barriers. The coalition is urging the FTC to determine if these tactics violate competition laws by foreclosing access to essential training data for smaller developers and the public alike.