Viral 'Avoiding AI' Workshops Teach Users to Disable AI
Get the Tech newsletter
Daily tech — startups, AI labs, chips, the launches that shape the next decade. Free.
- Charlie Bailey, a South Philadelphia librarian, hosts hour-long "Avoiding AI" workshops walking 20-plus attendees through disabling Apple Intelligence and Gemini on their phones via step-by-step projections
- Hannah Cyrus, a Bangor Public Library librarian in Maine, developed the original workshop format after patrons repeatedly asked why AI was "trying to write my emails" — and published a journal article that drew dozens of inquiries from librarians worldwide
- Cyrus' first workshop had to cap registration at 30 people and added a Zoom livestream, bringing total attendance to about 70 for each of her first two sessions — compared to the ~12 attendees her typical Intro to Computers classes draw
- Bailey's library Instagram post about the event received over 2,000 likes and 220 shares, far exceeding the library's typical few-dozen-likes engagement, prompting him to schedule a second program
- Attendees cited forced AI adoption at work, environmental concerns about data centers, and difficulty opting out as motivations — with one participant sharing that appending "&udm=14" to Google Search URLs hides AI results
- Cyrus frames the movement not as anti-technology — she still values OCR for scanning old documents — but as advocacy for user agency, noting "the forced adoption of AI on people's devices might be the straw that's breaking the camel's back"
Why it matters: Workshops filling waitlists and library social posts gaining thousands of likes suggests consumers are pushing back hard enough against default-on AI that they're seeking institutional help to opt out. If this momentum scales, it could pressure tech companies toward opt-in AI models rather than the forced-adoption strategy Bailey describes.
