Anthropic Destructively Scanned Millions of Books for AI Training in Secret Project Panama
Updated
Updated · Snopes.com · Aug 3
Anthropic Destructively Scanned Millions of Books for AI Training in Secret Project Panama
3 articles · Updated · Snopes.com · Aug 3
Summary
Unsealed court documents show Anthropic bought millions of physical books, then cut them apart for scanning under a confidential effort called Project Panama.
An April 2024 memo described the goal as to destructively scan "all the books in the world" and said the codename was used because Anthropic did not want the work known publicly.
Tom Turvey, a former Google Books partnerships executive, led the project, and an October 2024 memo indicated purchases had already reached the millions.
Emails with bulk seller Wonder Book said "less common books are a great place to start," though the records do not establish that Anthropic specifically targeted genuinely rare or antique titles.
The documents surfaced in a 2024 copyright lawsuit by authors, while separate industry commentary said AI firms seek physical books as high-quality training data to avoid model collapse.