Project Panama was Anthropic’s secret plan “to destructively scan all the books in the world,” according to an internal planning document unsealed in legal filings in late July. The project began in early 2024 as Anthropic executives sought books to teach its AI chatbot Claude “how to write well” instead of mimicking “low quality internet speak.” The startup purchased tens of thousands of books at a time from vendors including Better World Books and UK-based World of Books, then outsourced scanning and destruction to a vendor using a hydraulic machine to cut spines and slice pages for bulk copying. A vendor said Anthropic was “seeking an experienced document scanning services vendor to convert from 500,000 to two million books over a six-month period.” The paper waste was shipped to recycling plants to be pulped into products like toilet paper and cardboard boxes. Internal documents suggest executives believed the initiative would improve communication quality and address AI model collapse, as books offer human-written, professionally edited literature not spoiled by AI-generated content. The filings also show Anthropic co-founder Ben Mann acquired copyright-protected content from a “shadow library” called LibGen in June 2021. The revelation, first reported by the Washington Post, has cast a pall on the AI arms race.