Summary:
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Amazon buys used books in bulk, cuts and scans them for AI training, destroying what’s left.
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Investigation reveals suspiciously large orders through Biblio ending up at Amazon’s LAS8 facility for cutting and scanning.
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AI developers benefit from scanning old books for high-quality human writing, but sellers worldwide face mysterious bulk orders.
Amazon is buying used and rare books in bulk, cutting off the bindings, scanning the pages for AI training and destroying what’s left.
That’s according to a 404 Media investigation published Aug. 17 that followed roughly 1,000 books from a bookseller to a warehouse in North Las Vegas.
The method was low tech. Reporters worked with a bookseller who received a suspiciously large order through Biblio, a marketplace for used and rare titles where buyers stay anonymous, and hid an AirTag in one of the books. It ended up at Amazon’s LAS8 facility, home to an operation the company codes as VGT3. Workers there have described a job that consists of receiving books, cutting them and scanning them.
Amazon told Inc. it buys books through commercial channels to improve its products and services. It would not say how many books, when the program started, which products use the scans, or whether anyone screens for rare copies first.
Inc. found the practice may predate the report by two years. A September 2024 thread on Amazon’s Seller Forums shows booksellers comparing notes on order bursts headed to LAS8, including one seller who got 68 orders from a single buyer and another who received 48 University Press titles at 4 a.m. Amazon has not said whether those orders were connected to VGT3.
AI developers are running short on high-quality human writing, and old books contain material that never made it online, written before the internet filled up with machine-generated text. Removing a binding just makes the pages scan faster.
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Booksellers in the U.K., Ireland and Australia have reported similar bulk orders from buyers who will not identify themselves.
