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Field Note 02Ai4 2026
Preserving Books in the Age of AI
Dilo Wijesuriya
President · ARC
Knowledge Infrastructure · 10:18
Las Vegas · August 2026
Las Vegas · August 2026
Why non-destructive scanning is becoming part of AI infrastructure, and how physical knowledge can become machine-readable without sacrificing the original books.
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The question we asked
“What happens when AI needs knowledge that still lives in the physical world?”
The Field Note
A large share of the world’s useful knowledge remains offline in books and archives that modern AI systems cannot access.
Digitization is becoming an infrastructure problem for AI, but access should not come at the cost of damaging or discarding the physical record.
Three things to take away
- 01The physical world remains a major blind spot for AI.
- 02Non-destructive scanning can preserve books while expanding access.
- 03Digitization belongs in the AI infrastructure conversation.