"Destructively scan all the world's books": Anthropic's 'Project Panama' photos draw 550,000 views
First seen on X 13 hours ago@yachty66 ♥ 3,4043 views
Photos from Anthropic's 'Project Panama,' in which it bought millions of books in 2024, stripped the bindings and scanned them for AI training, went viral on X again.
Developer yachty66 posted on Nov. 8 that he was "today years old" when he learned of it, with photos of a hall full of books. The post drew about 3,400 likes and 550,000 views.
The Washington Post reported the project on Jan. 27 based on more than 4,000 pages of court documents unsealed in the authors' copyright suit against Anthropic. An internal document described the goal as to "destructively scan all the books in the world" and said the company did not want it known. Anthropic hired Tom Turvey in 2024 to build a central library of all the books in the world. Anthropic reportedly paid $1.5 billion to settle the authors' class action in 2025.
The spread is a resurfacing of a case already aired in court, not a new disclosure. The loss of the originals was again at the center of reactions.
“I was today years old when I learned about Project Panama. An effort by Anthropic to destructively scan all the books in the world in 2024.”
