Calling LibGen "the pirate site that Meta used for AI training" is very uncharitable. If I was to say something about Liggen, I'd say it's one of the most important sites of today's internet, along with Wikipedia, Internet Archive, and my favorite pirate torrent index I won't name here. Those are the websites that actualy help make knowledge and culture available to current and future generations. Interrestingly, half of these are called "pirate", and the other half is constantly challenged in a few juridictions.
It is new to academics only because they work at institutions which provide them with all of these publications.<p>For the general public it is one of the only ways to access academic research, without paying <i>absurd</i> amounts of money per article. Of course the general public is also funding the academics and allows them to produce the research in the first place.