THE FUSE

This week, heavy readers and casual posters alike were aghast at emerging reports of rare books being mulched in bulk as a sacrifice for LLMs. Word traveled that book suppliers were receiving abnormally large orders, believing that AI firms sought cleaner source material while skirting copyright laws. At the center of the controversy was ISBNdb, a book database who not only encouraged the trend but seemed to facilitate it. The optics bit back, as the site now tries to distance itself from the controversy, scrubbing its own posts on the subject.