US librarians launch viral ‘Avoiding AI’ workshops to disable default features

U.S. librarians have begun organizing viral «Avoiding AI» workshops aimed at people exhausted by the constant presence of big tech tools, according to a report by Habr based on TechCrunch. Charlie Bailey, a librarian from South Philadelphia, stated that his attendees often sit on their phones during the program while he shows them how to disable Apple Intelligence and Google Gemini.

The concept originated with Hannah Cyrus, a librarian in Maine, who received a wave of international inquiries after publishing an article about developing her own workshop. Bailey noted that he was inspired by widespread user frustration over tools being forced into daily life without consent. His hour-long class begins with a basic overview of consumer chatbot mechanics and why users might choose to opt out, followed by step-by-step projector demonstrations on how to switch off specific platform functions.

Bailey frames the initiative as a matter of digital literacy and reclaiming personal autonomy against interface designs that push automatic adoption. This grassroots pushback arrives alongside a growing administrative headache: U.S. librarians have previously reported dealing with patrons searching for nonexistent books generated entirely by AI hallucinations, a trend that has grown since the release of OpenAI's GPT-3.5 in late 2022.

Source: habr

Primary Source: TechCrunch