Society
Suspicions That US Firms Are Buying 50 Tons of Japanese Used Books to Train AI
A Japanese TV report says online used-bookstores saw a surge of mysterious bulk orders since August, funneled through an Okayama logistics center, and that records show over 50 tons of books were exported to the US — with the industry suspecting the goal is training data for generative AI. Whether the buyers are US tech firms and whether the purpose is AI training could not be independently confirmed. The debate splits between alarm over cultural IP leaving the country and calm reminders that Japanese copyright law permits data analysis for AI.