A few hours ago I finished reading Fahrenheit 451, it was hard for me because I rarely read books, but it was worth it, and oh, I felt like I read about our time, people in this novel are like people are now. People watch TV shows, movies, anime created by people and at least think a little, but it happens that people do not think at all and also watch only created by AI and their consumer soul is happy? or even better communicate with AI as a friend and not only, they are, in my opinion, similar to the wife of the main character of the novel; Maybe they will even face a similar fate?
I would say many more things, but I would be glad if you say.
I know it’s not a good idea to compare fiction with reality, but it’s hard not to compare this book with reality, don’t those who have read it agree?
Honestly, I didn’t expect this book to look like it was going to describe the future very accurately, I thought it was just about people refusing to think. I even recognized myself a little in this book.
I liked it, didn’t love it.
The whole central image of it, setting fire to books, and the way they go about it, just felt too direct to me. Still, it weaves a good story and the ideas resonate well enough.
AI companies are buying up rare and out of print books, scanning them to feed into the data centers, then literally shredding and burning the books, so those companies become the only source of the text of those books.
It’s not exactly the same thing but it is our reality’s parallel.
Valid, I was definitely thinking of that parallel when reading the recent AI headlines.
Destructive scanning is not altogether bad, but it’s a huge shame to see it happening from companies that give nothing worthwhile back to the public commons.
It does make me reconsider my ‘burning books is too clearly evil to suspend disbelief’ a little. Still, they’re somewhat different circumstances.
Your wording implies that they buy the last copies of books.
In many cases they are deliberately buying the only existing copies of rare books, yes.