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I wouldn't characterise it as 'undercover cop...' but perhaps it might be fairer to say that until it's tested in court, no-one knows, so they (Amazon etc) are taking the 'safe' path of destroying the books?

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Well, trying anything in court is definitely what they want to avoid. I mean, what is your suggestion here - should they buy the book, scan it, then sell or give it to someone else? That IS a copyright violation in itself, no need to try anything in court.

Whether or not AI training or replication of the text through the model is a copyright violation, is a whole different but unrelated question.

I don’t think it’s a sure thing that training a model on a work is considered a duplication in the sense that ripping a CD might be for example - unless I’ve missed something, that’s what hasn’t been decided in court. I think they see destroying the book as the safest course of action for them.

But they do not delete the scan after training, they keep all the training data for future use and future training.

Yes, and I imagine that’s why - in the minds of their lawyers - doing anything with the book (other than destroying it) is arguably less safe than destroying it

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