Oxford University partners with OpenAI to digitize Bodleian Library collections

The University of Oxford has entered a partnership with OpenAI to digitize historical texts from the Bodleian Library. While the university frames the project as a way to increase public access to rare materials, internal documents reveal that the digitized content is being used to train OpenAI’s artificial intelligence models. This development has sparked concerns among staff regarding the university's reputation and the environmental impact of AI training. The project, part of OpenAI’s 'NextGenAI' initiative, involves scanning thousands of historical dissertations, ballads, and private letters. While the university maintains that the material is out-of-copyright and that they retain the rights to the scans, critics argue that the use of academic archives for AI training lacks transparency. This move follows a broader trend of tech companies seeking fresh, high-quality data from physical libraries as web-scraped content becomes increasingly saturated with AI-generated text.