An AirTag exposed Amazon's secret rare-book scanning operation

A hidden AirTag inside an obscure book just tracked a bulk order straight to an Amazon warehouse where workers rip apart rare volumes for AI data.

Booksellers have long suspected that tech companies were buying up rare, out-of-print books in bulk and destroying them after scanning. An investigation reported by 404 Media and Ars Technica confirmed it. A planted AirTag led to an Amazon facility in Las Vegas known as VGT3, where workers scan ISBN barcodes, slice pages from spines, and convert physical text into digital training data. Amazon declined to comment on AI training directly, stating only that it buys books to "improve the products and services our customers use."

Why it matters: AI companies are running out of text on the public internet. To get an edge over competitors, Amazon is targeting obscure, untranslated, or long-forgotten books that exist only on paper. But because the physical books are destroyed during scanning and the scanned text remains hidden inside Amazon's private models, that unique history vanishes from the physical world without ever making it to the public web.

Know this: VGT3 workers noted in online forums that the warehouse actually ran completely out of books earlier this year, sparking fears the facility would close before new bulk shipments arrived. Meanwhile, rivals like Anthropic and xAI have publicly stated they do not train models on rare or antique books.

Apparently, the team at the Las Vegas warehouse isn't hiding their mission: the logo on the facility door features a T. rex getting ready to eat a book.