Thread

1. patall · 1790265425 · focus · HN ↗

   Can someone explain why the old books could really be relevant. I get the pre-nuclear steel analogy, but why is this relevant given how much more modern texts exist. A few years ago, millions of yahoo groups were erased but now a few thousand books are what is needed to run a successful AI company? I mean, it can barely be about the information in those books (that would be very often outdated), but just for a little more text (with ever less marginal gain), what is the benefit?

   1. Legend2440 · 1790266460 · focus · HN ↗

      It sounds like it is about the information in the books. The titles they're looking for are all nonfiction. Not everything is on the internet, and just because it's a few years old doesn't mean it's outdated.

      Speaking from experience, the information density of published books is a lot higher than most internet text. It's very high quality training data.

      The goal here is to have all human knowledge in a single file, which is pretty neat IMO.

      1. ChickeNES · 1790267111 · focus · HN ↗

         > the information density of published books is a lot higher than most internet text

         I'm not convinced. I think you are under-weighing the massive volumes of stuff like self-help books, romance novels, etc.

         1. criemen · 1790267259 · focus · HN ↗

            They're targeting non-fiction books, so romance novels would be out.

            1. scottyah · 1790268113 · focus · HN ↗

               Is that a policy change after o4 got a little out of hand?
            2. ChickeNES · 1790268720 · focus · HN ↗

               Booksellers noticed a huge uptick in non-fiction purchases, that is not the same thing as them not targeting fiction at all.

               Edit: Actually, I have real evidence, the Bartz in "Bartz v Anthropic" is Andrea Bartz, a novelist, and the complaint specifically lists four of her novels as infringed works.

      2. newsy-combi · 1790267138 · focus · HN ↗

         The internet basically never delivered on the promise of replacing textbooks or even education as a whole. Wikipedia sucks on many topics, has insane internal politics, and is a tertiary source by design (redigesting blogs and books), whereas textbooks are generally secondary.
      3. zardo · 1790267407 · focus · HN ↗

         Also the ability to set the training input limit in the past could be useful.
      4. patall · 1790279159 · focus · HN ↗

         I see. So it is much less about 150 year old fiction books, but more about 1980s science literature that was only ever printed five times. That makes a lot more sense than what the public debate seems to be about.

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