VGT3

VGT3 is an Amazon facility in Las Vegas used for data harvesting and destructive book scanning to train large language models. Employees at VGT3 receive the books, cut their spines, and scan their pages, destroying the books in the process.

Investigation

In July 2026, 404 Media placed an Apple AirTag in a rare book inside a 1,000 book shipment from a bookseller, and watched where it went. The book was transported from a California airport to Milwaukee, Kenosha (Wisconsin), Grand Junction (Colorado), and finally to an Amazon building, LAS8. The AirTag located the book at the north end of the LAS8 warehouse, which Amazon employees described as a separate operation named VGT3, with its logo on the door. Sudden bursts of book orders to the warehouse were reported as early as September 2024.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 Jake Roach (August 18, 2026). "Secret tracking device placed in rare book ends up in Amazon processing facility — destroying books to train AI models is 'all' the Vegas warehouse does". Tom's Hardware. Retrieved August 19, 2026.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Todd Bishop (August 17, 2026). "How an AirTag planted by a reporter led to a secret Amazon site where old books are cut apart and scanned". GeekWire. Retrieved August 19, 2026.
  3. ↑ Emanuel Maiberg (August 17, 2026). "We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training Facility". 404 Media. Retrieved August 19, 2026.
  4. ↑ Amanda Silberling (August 17, 2026). "Amazon, which started off selling books, is destroying rare texts to train AI". TechCrunch. Retrieved August 19, 2026.
  5. ↑ Frank Landymore (August 17, 2026). "Amazon Caught Destroying Rare Books to Train AI". Futurism. Retrieved August 19, 2026.
  6. ↑ Ashley Belanger (August 17, 2026). "Hidden Airtag reveals Amazon is trashing rare books to train AI". Ars Technica. Retrieved August 19, 2026.
  7. ↑ Georgia Fearn (August 17, 2026). "Amazon Is Buying Up Older Books and Destroying Them After Scanning. The Orders Go Back to 2024". Inc. Retrieved August 19, 2026.

36°16′07″N 115°02′56″W / 36.2685°N 115.0489°W / 36.2685; -115.0489