Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) warned that artificial intelligence companies could be undermining human creativity by acquiring rare books, digitizing their contents for AI training and disposing of the physical originals.
Murphy Warns of AI Book Training
On Tuesday, Murphy made the comments in a post on X while sharing a clip of himself discussing what he described as efforts by AI companies to acquire and digitize scarce books.
"The AI companies claim their technology will enhance human creativity. But they are quietly undertaking a massive campaign to destroy human creativity," Murphy wrote.
In the video, Murphy alleged that AI companies are "literally buying up millions of books," including rare works with only one or a few remaining copies, before scanning and disposing of them.
Anthropic’s Alleged Rare Book Project
Murphy specifically pointed to Anthropic and its "Project Panama," an effort documented in court filings that involved purchasing millions of physical books, removing their bindings, scanning their pages and disposing of the originals. Murphy raised concerns that such practices could put scarce and potentially rare works at risk.
Murphy also claimed the companies are particularly interested in books created before 2022 because they represent work produced without AI assistance.
"These were wholly human-created works," he said, calling the alleged practice "especially perverse."
Murphy argued that destroying rare physical works could make it harder for future generations to access examples of original human creativity and distinguish them from AI-generated content.
He also called for congressional action, saying lawmakers could establish "common sense guard rails" around AI development.
"The pace of this development, the pace of this innovation is frightening," Murphy said, arguing that AI companies should operate "a little bit slower and a little bit more responsibly."
AI Reshapes Work, Creativity
Earlier, Kevin O’Leary said companies that failed to adopt AI risked falling behind competitors, as businesses increasingly used the technology for content creation, advertising, customer acquisition and management.
He said AI could significantly reduce production and creative costs while improving output, but emphasized the importance of human editing.
Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang said parents should not focus on finding "AI-proof" fields for their children.
He argued that skills such as storytelling, creativity, communication and judgment would remain valuable, while encouraging students to learn how to use AI to enhance their work.
Huang said automation could shift workers toward higher-level tasks requiring human judgment.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman predicted that AI could surpass human intelligence by 2030, potentially making scientific discoveries humans could not make independently.
He estimated that 30% to 40% of economic tasks could eventually be performed by AI and urged people to develop adaptability, resilience and the ability to keep learning as technology reshaped jobs.
Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
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