Taking the “Human” Out of the “Humanities” – Why Tech Wants Control of the Arts
By Jamie Keegan
Last month, news that the artificial intelligence company Anthropic has been instigating a “destructive scanning” procedure to train its language-model system Claude. Such a procedure involves the buying up of rare books, scanning their contents to create a digital record of those books that are used to train said language model, and finally destroying the physical copies. The outrage has been predictably severe, I think most people, whether bookish or otherwise, understand that there’s almost a cultural taboo around the act of destroying books, whatever the motivations may be. And what is that motivation? To get around legal issues of copyright since first-sale clauses allow purchasers to do what they wish with the books they purchase (including to destroy them). [1] To get around this is only the latest incident produced by the ever-disturbing obsession the tech industry has focused on the arts.
It is becoming increasingly evident to me that the major tech figures are cultivating an image of being “artistic.” All of a sudden, we have Peter Thiel giving lectures on the Antichrist, who he flip-flops from assigning to individuals like Greta Thunberg to collectives or concepts like governmental regulations on the practice of AI (of course). [2] In the other corner, Elon Musk boasts that Grok will produce a full-length “historically-accurate” film adaptation of The Odyssey [3], furthering his narrative of culture war pot-stirring over the Nolan movie having non-white actors. Most hilariously ironic to me Palantír itself, co-founded by Thiel and named after the “seeing stones” weaponised by the Dark Lord Sauron in The Lord of the Rings. All these may seem disconnected from Anthropic gobbling up books like Ginsberg’s Moloch but there’s a rather unsettling trend: the arts and the humanities seem to be prime targets for these companies and their CEOs.
These “tech bros” seem to fashion themselves as old-school classic geniuses, akin to a Leonardo da Vinci. Heading multi-billion-dollar companies isn’t enough, they need appear just as artistically gifted and minded as innovative. Because of this, we have to endure the farce of seeing the richest idiots in the world embarrass themselves by claiming to appreciate Tolkien and Homer. But it is also more sinister than that. Aligning yourself and by extension your billion-dollar companies producing plagiarism machines of misinformation with historical “greats” or works adds legitimacy to them. Extend the logic to Anthropic and consider how regardless of whether you’re an academic or not the arts unite us; our relationship with stories or films or even ideas and concepts are fundamental to our daily lives. And defenders of big tech and generative AI have often resorted to claims of some inevitable future that will happen with or without public support (“well it’s the future!” “it’s coming whether you like it or not” etc. etc.). From that logic, why shouldn’t rare books be used to train language models like Claude or Chat GPT? Why shouldn’t Thiel defend AI from nebulous nefarious luddite threat? It’s the future after all, and we have to trust the process of these “geniuses” and their machines.
It may seem alarmist or even conspiratorial to suspect some grand attempted takeover, but I’d argue we’ve been seeing the consequences of the discursive attitudes pivotal to the humanities losing more and more of what makes them “human.” Conversations surrounding the arts on social media are being skewed towards simplistic and deliberately provocative “hot takes” lacking in the nuance they deserve, a feature not only rewarded by but powered by the type of quick-fire algorithmic “innovations” that tech companies have pushed through in the last two decades. Our artistic expression and discourse becomes neutered while Thiel is allowed to ponder the Antichrist in a bid to win over conservative Catholics [4] and Musk can portray himself as an authority on European migration [5]. A few months ago I wrote a piece arguing that the study of the arts and humanities is as essential as it has ever been if not more so. For people to excel in these fields require patience and care; to respect the stories and ideas of cultures across the world and time and to understand what makes them so enduring. Anthropic’s “destructive scanning” procedure is only the latest in a long line of attempting to control the meaning of and access to the humanities. We should do well to recognise this pattern the next time an infuriating story like it breaks out.
Sources:
[1] James, Kathryn. “Why is Anthropic destroying books?” The Guardian. Wed. 5 Aug 2026. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/aug/05/anthropic-ai-destroying-books.
[2] Kaster, Carolyn. “Peter Thiel thinks Greta Thunberg could be the Antichrist. What actually is the Antichrist?” The Conversation. October 16, 2025. https://theconversation.com/peter-thiel-thinks-greta-thunberg-could-be-the-antichrist-what-actually-is-the-antichrist-267439.
[3] Murray, Conor. “Musk suggests he’ll fund an alternative ‘Odyssey’ with Grok – Latest in crusade against Nolan’s film.” Forbes. July 22, 2026. https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2026/07/22/musk-suggests-hell-make-his-own-odyssey-with-grok-latest-in-crusade-against-nolan-film/.
[4] Lamb, Christopher. “Peter Thiel’s secret lectures on Antichrist in Rome spark debate.” CNN. March 19, 2026. https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/16/europe/peter-thiel-antichrist-lectures-rome-intl.
[5] Beddoes, Zanny Minton. “An interview with Elon Musk.” The Insider. July 23, 2026. https://www.economist.com/insider/the-insider/an-interview-with-elon-musk.
