Speaker 1: This is a clip from Beyond Truth.
Speaker 2: You can access the entire episode now on our website
Speaker 2: and all podcast platforms.
Speaker 1: But there's other.
Speaker 2: Things going on as well. I'm sure you've heard of
Speaker 2: Joe Fel says that's sort of the most recent fellow
Speaker 2: that has perished, I guess after showing us a whole
Speaker 2: pile of books. So I never knew who this guy was,
Speaker 2: so I'm not here to advocate for him. I have
Speaker 2: no idea who he is, what he's all about. The
Speaker 2: only thing I'm bringing up about him tonight and some
Speaker 2: of the other people as well, because I don't know
Speaker 2: these people either, is just the fact about the books.
Speaker 1: That's the only thing that I'm looking into.
Speaker 2: Because I've seen some controversial stuff out there now, everybody's
Speaker 2: slagging him or you know, their sy oups going on.
Speaker 2: There's so much going on out.
Speaker 1: There, you don't know what to believe.
Speaker 2: And I never met this guy before and never seen him,
Speaker 2: so I don't have any opinions about him whatsoever. And
Speaker 2: I don't really care what else he was into, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. We're just going to talk about
Speaker 2: the books tonight. That's the main thing. So for those
Speaker 2: of you who are like, oh well, I'm not going
Speaker 2: to watch yeah, just to sim it down, okay, because
Speaker 2: we're just gonna be talking about the books tonight. So
Speaker 2: all right. So for thousands of years, controlling information meant
Speaker 2: controlling books, because that's kind of how we've had our
Speaker 2: information up to today. I know it's a little different now,
Speaker 2: but books have been burnt by government, religion, and conquering armies.
Speaker 2: Libraries have been destroyed. I'm sure you all heard about
Speaker 2: the Library of Alexandria. That's sort of the most famous one.
Speaker 2: I think about the book burning and whatever they didn't
Speaker 2: destroy there I do believe will be under the Vatican libraries.
Speaker 2: I'm sure they probably have lots of material there, but
Speaker 2: it's not for you and I to read those. So,
Speaker 2: you know, so a lot of libraries have been destroyed
Speaker 2: over years. You know, if you go and look back
Speaker 2: at the history, manuscripts have disappeared into private collection. Other
Speaker 2: books simply vanish because nobody thought they were important enough
Speaker 2: to preserve. Today, the battle of knowledge looks very different.
Speaker 2: Millions of books can be scanned into computers, which I
Speaker 2: guess in itself is a good thing because a lot
Speaker 2: of people prefer to read on the e reader, now
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, rather than having, you know,
Speaker 2: having to store all the books. And I get that,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, It is a lot more
Speaker 2: convenient just have it on your computer. Run to have
Speaker 2: to store them all and we can't. Everybody can't have
Speaker 2: a copy of everything. So I get that part of it,
Speaker 2: you know. I think we should have both. I think
Speaker 2: we should be in the balance here, you know. And
Speaker 2: so that's what we need to try and find. It's
Speaker 2: a balance in this, right, you know, how far do
Speaker 2: we go here? Now? Other books simply vanished.
Speaker 1: Because nobody thought they were right.
Speaker 2: I said that today the battle over knowledge looks very different.
Speaker 2: Millions of books can be scanned into computers. Entire libraries
Speaker 2: can exist without a physical building. A read book can
Speaker 2: once require traveling across the world, can potentially be read
Speaker 2: from a phone. But that has created a new question now, right,
Speaker 2: So who owns human knowledge once everything becomes digital? That's
Speaker 2: the big question here?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: So recently court record revealed as secretive an entropy program
Speaker 2: called Project Panama. So there you go, Project Panama, Project
Speaker 2: anchor what was that one? It must have been a
Speaker 2: different one that I was talking about.
Speaker 1: The other day, because that's.
Speaker 2: It may have been with Olsen that we were talking
Speaker 2: about that. Yeah, there's so many projects going on, and
Speaker 2: we do so many shows here that it's hard to
Speaker 2: keep track of all the different projects. But different this
Speaker 2: one is Panama.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: So the company purchased enormous quantities of physical books. The
Speaker 2: bindings were removed, the pages were scanned at industrial speed.
Speaker 2: The physical books were then sent for recycling, as in,
Speaker 2: they destroyed them after okay. So the purpose was to
Speaker 2: feed high quality written information in to artificial intelligence systems.
Speaker 2: At almost at the same time, independent people have been
Speaker 2: doing nearly the opposite the search for forgotten books. They
Speaker 2: buy them with their own money, they scan them, and
Speaker 2: then they give them back to the public for free.
Speaker 2: So that's what Joe was doing, right, And this is
Speaker 2: why it seems so odd that he's no longer with us.
Speaker 2: So we're gonna get into him specifically in a minute here.
Speaker 1: But so that was Joe Fels, that's right.
Speaker 2: So he it just passed away last week, I believe,
Speaker 2: at forty years old. And from the little bit that
Speaker 2: I know about him, from what I've seen just from
Speaker 2: snippets here and there, he always would mention that he
Speaker 2: would never hurt himself. You know what, I'm saying, that
Speaker 2: he's healthy, there's nothing going on, and that he would
Speaker 2: never do that, and if he did mysteriously disappear for
Speaker 2: whatever reason, that it would be the government's fault. He
Speaker 2: kept saying that in pretty much every single video that
Speaker 2: I've seen of him, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: he's gone. Now how he went? You know, who did it?
Speaker 2: That's all speculation. It just seems to suss to me
Speaker 2: that he did it himself. I don't think he did,
Speaker 2: but all the other stuff, you know, who knows, you know.
Speaker 1: So anyway, so he.
Speaker 2: Was preserving library remains online. So he actually has a
Speaker 2: website that I do believe is still alive.
Speaker 1: It's a live website.
Speaker 2: You can go on there now, and he has already
Speaker 2: I believe, scanned some books and whatnot, and they're still there. However,
Speaker 2: from what I've seen, again, I only know a little
Speaker 2: snippets because I wasn't following the guy. A lot of
Speaker 2: people are saying that they're going into his YouTube trying
Speaker 2: to find some of the old videos and they're being
Speaker 2: scrubbed out. So you could ask, like, what the heck
Speaker 2: is going on. Apparently his girlfriend has taken over his accounts,
Speaker 2: posting all kinds of stuff. Again, I don't know her,
Speaker 2: I don't know what they we're up to. I don't
Speaker 2: know what's going on exactly, but she has access to
Speaker 2: the account. And now all of a sudden, a lot
Speaker 2: of the videos about the old books are disappearing. They're
Speaker 2: just vanishing. They've just been taken down. So make up
Speaker 2: your own conclusions there as to who's doing it.
Speaker 1: And why, right, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: So, yeah, so tonight we're gonna be looking at Joe. Okay,
Speaker 2: that's one of the guys. Another one is Aaron Schwartz,
Speaker 2: Richard Green, Project Gutenberg, Occult Archives and Internet Archives and
Speaker 2: Project Panama. Those are the things that we're gonna take
Speaker 2: a little looksie at tonight here. So now we're not
Speaker 2: claiming for liability reasons. Okay, we have to say this.
Speaker 2: We're not claiming at these depths we're connected. However, it
Speaker 2: does seem like ore, But we are asking some questions here.
Speaker 2: So what happens when knowledge becomes vas valuable enough that corporations, governments, publishers, collectors,
Speaker 2: and ordinary people all fight over who gets access to it.
Speaker 1: What do you think of that, Robert?
Speaker 3: I think you know, there's more to this story than
Speaker 3: you think. That's what I think there is. There's it
Speaker 3: goes way deeper. That's That's what I'm getting at.
Speaker 1: It always does, doesn't that. You know, they just seem to.
Speaker 2: Keep going and going and going.
Speaker 3: Well, first off, I mean, uh, a thousand years ago,
Speaker 3: people people kept all the books in one big library, Alexander,
Speaker 3: you know that there wasn't many books. Now, Uh, you
Speaker 3: know we have libraries everywhere. But do kids still go
Speaker 3: and read the books?
Speaker 1: Do they read the books?
Speaker 3: When was the last Nina, When was the last time
Speaker 3: you went to the library.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I'm old school, so I actually do
Speaker 2: go to the library once in a while, you know,
Speaker 2: even to get you can get photocopies, right, you know,
Speaker 2: instead of paying the big money for ink and whatever else,
Speaker 2: going the library and do it there. But I'm old school,
Speaker 2: and you're right, the young people probably don't even know
Speaker 2: what a library is.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well I got some more questions.
Speaker 3: Just don't run away with the train here.
Speaker 1: But you went to the library. When last time you
Speaker 1: went to the library.
Speaker 3: There's I'm getting someone going. I'm like I'm like a
Speaker 3: lawyer in a courtroom, you know, I'm asking the questions
Speaker 3: through the jury.
Speaker 2: Here.
Speaker 3: Okay, you went to you went to the library, right,
Speaker 3: and you went to what made some folker to copies
Speaker 3: or whatever?
Speaker 1: You did you go to? Did you check out a book?
Speaker 1: Did you check out a book?
Speaker 2: No? I didn't, but you know.
Speaker 3: Okay that that's what I wanted to when when you
Speaker 3: were there, was there the place? Was the place packed
Speaker 3: or was there a couple of people?
Speaker 2: But there there still is a lot of people in there,
Speaker 2: to be honest, Yeah, there still is. Yeah, a lot
Speaker 2: of people like to hang out. You know. They have
Speaker 2: a lot of programs up in the library for mom
Speaker 2: and todts or kids. There'll be reading the time and
Speaker 2: there's a lot of things going on. They're still keeping
Speaker 2: it busy. But I know where you're getting at. And
Speaker 2: the teenagers probably arms, you know you're gonna find them there.
Speaker 2: But you'll find small children and you'll find older people
Speaker 2: who just want to sit somewhere and read a book
Speaker 2: and be quiet and the quietness, you know, so there
Speaker 2: is still that and you know that is an option
Speaker 2: people if you've forgotten there is free books and if
Speaker 2: your book that you're looking for isn't available, All you
Speaker 2: have to do is go to your local library and
Speaker 2: they will request it and.
Speaker 1: Have it brought to your library.
Speaker 2: And if they don't have it in any other library,
Speaker 2: they'll actually buy it and put it in there. So
Speaker 2: if you're an author and you want your own book
Speaker 2: in the library, that's all you have to do, and
Speaker 2: they'll bring it in, you know what I mean. So
Speaker 2: it's still alive and it's still there, and it's still free.
Speaker 3: So that is and you can donate books to the
Speaker 3: library too, and you.
Speaker 2: Can we donate books as well. Like if you pass
Speaker 2: away and you've got a huge library and you don't
Speaker 2: know what, don't enter your local library for sure, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean, Like, because our kids aren't gonna
Speaker 2: take them. I know my kids are probably gonna throw
Speaker 2: everything I have out unfortunately, So yeah, donate them to
Speaker 2: some to a library that's you know, where people are
Speaker 2: going to actually enjoy them, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: So you know, after this show, I'm pretty sure everybody's
Speaker 2: gonna think, Yeah, better not get rid of the books, right,
Speaker 2: you better keep on, you know, collecting those books. But yeah,
Speaker 2: what's gonna happen to the physical books, you know, once
Speaker 2: the corporation have all the digital copies right and they're
Speaker 2: destroying the original copies, so you know. So but anyways,
Speaker 2: before we jump ahead of ourselves here, if we're gonna
Speaker 2: get right into the Project Panama here now, so what
Speaker 2: actually happened?
Speaker 1: So now the company.
Speaker 2: Behind the Claude artificial intelligence.
Speaker 1: System, so Claude. So that goes back to claw.
Speaker 2: Book and Molte Book and we've done shows on that.
Speaker 2: So if you haven't heard about those things, go and
Speaker 2: binge watch those. I might put them at the end
Speaker 2: of this show here so you can jump in there
Speaker 2: after to see what that's all about. If this is
Speaker 2: all new to you now. The court findings were revealed
Speaker 2: that in twenty twenty four, on Tropic launched an internal
Speaker 2: book acquisition operating operation known as Project Panama. Internal planning
Speaker 2: material described an ambition to destructively scan books on an
Speaker 2: enormous scale while keeping the project out of public attention.
Speaker 2: This is why we're bringing this to your attention because
Speaker 2: they're trying not to. Okay, So on Tropic purchased books
Speaker 2: in huge quantities from used book suppliers, so they're going
Speaker 2: around to all the used bookstores, okay, buying up all
Speaker 2: the copies they can get. And I wouldn't be surprised
Speaker 2: that that's also private collectors as well, maybe trying to
Speaker 2: get those as well as on court records describe orders
Speaker 2: involving tens of thousands of books at a time. The
Speaker 2: scanning vendor proposed processing between five hundred thousand and two
Speaker 2: million books in six months. Two million books in six months.
Speaker 2: The total number eventually scanned was reduced in portions of
Speaker 2: the court record although over Oh sorry, guys, we've got
Speaker 2: a thunderstorm going on here. I don't know if you
Speaker 2: guys can hear.
Speaker 1: That, but it'll pass.
Speaker 2: You don't worry about it. Oh boy um reported by
Speaker 2: on those records described millions of physical books being acquired.
Speaker 1: So how the books were processed.
Speaker 2: Industrial equipment removed the spine. They literally cut the spine
Speaker 2: right off. Once the bindings was cut away, the pages
Speaker 2: could fit through the high scanning speed scanners. You know
Speaker 2: what I mean. The page became digital data. After scanning.
Speaker 2: The dismantled physical copies were scheduled for recycling. This is
Speaker 2: called destructive scanning. It's not literally a book burning because
Speaker 2: they don't have to burn anymore. Now they just recycle,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, just a different word for
Speaker 2: the same thing, is what it is. But the physical
Speaker 2: book does not survive the process. So it's the same
Speaker 2: darn thing. Okay, it's still in the words, right. So
Speaker 2: AI companies in the huge amount of written language. The
Speaker 2: Internet contains an enormous quantity of texts, but much of
Speaker 2: it is repetitive, poorly edited, and low quality. Internal AI
Speaker 2: company communications revealed that books were considered especially valuable because
Speaker 2: edited books contain structured arguments, professional writing, and information that
Speaker 2: may never be appeared freely online. So that is so true.
Speaker 2: It's you know, that's where all our information is in
Speaker 2: these old books, anything prior to eighteen hundred, I would say,
Speaker 2: don't get rid of that. Don't get rid of that,
Speaker 2: like it's going to be worth a lot of money.
Speaker 2: I would think in the future, if you're even allowed
Speaker 2: to have it, might be a law saying, you know,
Speaker 2: a lot to have it anymore. Wouldn't be surprised. But
Speaker 2: we haven't quite gotten there yet. So now it's the
Speaker 2: copyright controversy. So and Tropic was also accused of acquiring
Speaker 2: millions of digital books to unauthorized online libraries. I didn't
Speaker 2: know that.
Speaker 1: There you go that. Sorry, that's not good.
Speaker 2: Unauthorized, yeah, illegal, is it not? But you know, see,
Speaker 2: this is why they don't want you knowing about this stuff,
Speaker 2: right because they're getting in trouble. From the looks of
Speaker 2: it here, somebody must have figured it out, but they
Speaker 2: became legally separate from the physical book it purchased and scanned.
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty five, a federal drudge found that using
Speaker 2: books to train AI could qualify as transformative fair use,
Speaker 2: but on Tropic still faces claims over the way it
Speaker 2: acquired pirateate copies.