Company Offering Printed Books to Train AI Stops After 404 Media Coverage

5 hours ago

ISBNdb deleted a portion of its website that offered to source printed books for AI training after 404 Media's reporting.
The company walked back its claims, describing the offering as 'a test of market interest' and stating no such service was ever implemented.
On July 30, ISBNdb added a note to its homepage and news page denying it ever purchased, scanned, or sold books for AI training.
ISBNdb emphasized it does not train AI models and has never done so, reiterating its role as a provider of book data, not physical books.

Pre-2022 print books are a clean source of AI training data, free from AI-generated text and poisoning.
ISBNdb offers bulk book acquisition services for AI companies, with strict NDAs to keep client identity secret.
Bulk purchases of books by AI companies have spiked since 2024, causing unusual sales patterns recognized by booksellers.

Flathub banned AI-coded app submissions last month, and new data shows nearly 73% of rejected apps are already abandoned, existing only a few months.
Developer Evangelos Paterakis examined 120 rejected code repositories with an 'AI Slop' tag; 88 are no longer actively developed, many with deleted source code.
The high abandonment rate undermines the idea that users would flock to other formats for AI-coded software, as most banned apps were not maintained.

Pre-2022 print books are a clean source of AI training data, free from AI-generated text and poisoning.
ISBNdb offers bulk book acquisition services for AI companies, with strict NDAs to keep client identity secret.
Bulk purchases of books by AI companies have spiked since 2024, causing unusual sales patterns recognized by booksellers.

Flathub banned AI-coded app submissions last month, and new data shows nearly 73% of rejected apps are already abandoned, existing only a few months.
Developer Evangelos Paterakis examined 120 rejected code repositories with an 'AI Slop' tag; 88 are no longer actively developed, many with deleted source code.
The high abandonment rate undermines the idea that users would flock to other formats for AI-coded software, as most banned apps were not maintained.

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