But scanning the books also helps those AI companies because ultimately they want more data. Yes, they also destroy rare books to sabotage competitors, and thus also damage global society - a reason why these evil companies should be disbanded - but the article seems to not put any thoughts into things here, other than the superficial "they destroy books".

I guess they just cut the spines to speed scan the pages with a machine and then the resulting pile of papers is no longer worth anything, so they just dispose of it.