We know that at least one major AI company has used physical books to train their models. Someone—if not more than one group or company—has been snapping up massive volumes of books from shops around the world. “What’s with the online purchasing bonanza of used books right now?” On May 26, a book-industry newsletter called Publishers Lunch noted accusations that Zoom was buying books for AI companies. For now, this is what we know: A lot of used books are suddenly being bought up by companies including Zoom Books.