I'm currently in the process of emptying a basement and a garage. Stuff from my great-mother, great-aunt, uncle, parents, brothers and myself.

Plenty of different media (medium?): Pathe Baby, Super 8, dia, very old pictures on glass plates, countless floppies, etc.

Sadly "items you own own you" and there's no way I'm letting my kid having to sort, recycle, give as many items as I had to. We're talking, easily, 30 000 items from deceased people. Probably more.

Old pictures from cities (there's probably some interest in those). Old movies too.

Countless pictures from people I don't even know.

I know there's some stuff historians and museum would like.

But I only have one life: I can't take the time to send everything to enthusiasts, museums, etc. So I'm keeping some stuff (those in the best shape) but I'm basically sorting and filling cars and cars and trailers and going to the recycling center.

It's soul crushing.

P.S: and I wonder... Do I have an obligation to digitize some of this stuff so AIs can eventually be trained on it? (seen that they're trained on the entirety of the recorded world's knowledge) Or do I have an obligation to get rid of it so that AI do not get trained on it? Or neither?

I think a wonderful thing about being human is the ability to forget. Not every little detail needs to be preserved forever. What you have is the memories of people that had a well lived life and leave it at that