Open thread 7/31/2026
An increasing number of videos have annoying AI narration, but the content is still interesting. This is one of them:
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
An increasing number of videos have annoying AI narration, but the content is still interesting. This is one of them:
This was reported about a month ago, but I just heard about it yesterday. Sad news, I think.
“On Monday, court documents revealed that AI company Anthropic spent millions of dollars physically scanning print books to build Claude, an AI assistant similar to ChatGPT. In the process, the company cut millions of print books from their bindings, scanned them into digital files, and threw away the originals solely for the purpose of training AI—details buried in a copyright ruling on fair use whose broader fair use implications we reported yesterday.”
Reportedly, some of the destroyed books were rare. To think of libraries being destroyed to feed AI …
For those who might want to read more, here’s a link:
https://tinyurl.com/5n6rsnmp
Every time I see a reference to that story I get flashbacks to Rainbows End (Vernor Vinge). I see “cut millions of print books from their bindings” and inevitably get a visual of the Geisel library dancing LOL.
It’s been a sobering morning so far. I’m watching financial news, as usual, and there was some commentary on the rise of socialist candidates and politicians. One saying that they are so crazy that it is a big favor to the GOP.
Then Ben Domenech provided the counterpoint that the dissatisfaction among the youth is real and large, and that the DSA message seems to be working with them. Nothing for the GOP to be happy about. He adds that in his opinion, whatever the GOP is doing is too little, too late.
Then… Ever since the Fauci diary news broke, I was curious what all my lefty friends who post copiously on Facebook would say. Nothing. Until this morning that is.
OK, this is not going to be surprising, I suppose. However, here are a dozen smart folks who are utterly impervious to facts, such as anything Fauci actually wrote in his diary. They are still saying: “
Raymond ShawAnthony Fauci is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful and honest human being I’ve ever known in my life.”And then they say that we on the right are the ignorant ones. An obvious guess is that the cognitive dissonance is much too great for them to make a switch or even an adjustment.