Librarians Host Viral 'Avoiding AI' Workshops For Those Fed Up With Big Tech

“Everyone is glued to their screens in my library program,” joked Charlie Bailey, a South Philadelphia librarian. He invited his audience to take out their phones so he could guide them through disabling Apple Intelligence and Gemini.

Bailey stands in a children’s library classroom, anchored by a colorful rug that reminds us M is for “moon” and Z is for “zebra.” But the 20-some adults in the room aren’t here for alphabet lessons. They are attending a workshop called Avoiding AI, which, in this context, does not stand for “apple” and “igloo.”

“I was inspired by the frustration people feel when AI tools are forced upon them, and the sense that unwanted AI is suddenly everywhere in our lives,” Bailey told TechCrunch.

Bailey begins the hour-long session with an overview of how AI chatbots and consumer AI tools function, explaining why people might use these products and why they might choose to abstain. Then, he walks through the most popular tech platforms and devices, providing step-by-step instructions on the projector to help attendees turn off specific features.

“As a librarian, I view this as advancing digital literacy and helping people reclaim autonomy over whether they want to use AI tools,” Bailey said. “It’s crucial, especially when avoiding these tools is so difficult and the design seems to force adoption.”

Charlie Bailey hosts an “Avoiding AI” workshopImage Credits:TechCrunch

Bailey got the idea for the Avoiding AI workshop from Hannah Cyrus, a librarian in Maine. He was one of dozens of librarians from around the world who contacted Cyrus after she published a journal article about developing her own workshop.

“This has never happened before with anything I’ve worked on,” Cyrus told TechCrunch. “Nobody has ever been emailing me like, ‘Can you give me your Intro to Computers slides?’”

At the Bangor Public Library, patrons turn to Cyrus when they need help with anything involving technology.

“More and more, I was getting questions about, ‘How do I turn this [AI] stuff off? Why is it trying to write my emails for me? Why is it trying to summarize my one-sentence email that I can easily read?’” Cyrus said. “I just decided that with so much media hype out there about AI products, it would be a good opportunity to teach people about the basics of what is happening when you’re using this technology, and then getting into how to turn it off if you don’t want to use it.”

Usually, Cyrus’ classes like Intro to Computers get about a dozen attendees. But so many people expressed interest in her first Avoiding AI workshop that she had to cut off registration at 30 people, open a waitlist, and share the workshop on Zoom. Including the livestream, about 70 people attended each of Cyrus’ first two workshops.

When Bailey followed Cyrus’ lead to host a workshop in Philadelphia, the reception was similarly unprecedented. The library’s Instagram post about the “Avoiding AI” event got over 2,000 likes and 220 shares, whereas most of the library’s posts don’t get more than a few dozen likes. He scheduled a second program because the first got too many registrations.

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“As an information professional, it feels good to see people skeptical of AI,” Bailey said. “It felt really good to see how many people share this feeling.”

There’s a sense of camaraderie among the room of strangers during the workshop. When Bailey invites attendees to share their own tips, one person explains that when you append “&udm=14” to a Google Search, it will hide AI results. Bailey writes the string of characters down on a whiteboard next to the log-in credentials for the teen Wi-Fi server.

“You have to go through all the trouble to buy a home in today’s world, and two years from now, there could be a data center next to your house,” one workshop attendee named Johnny says.

“I keep getting AI shoved down my throat at work, and every time I see it, I think about the environment,” another attendee named Gabrielle adds. But she’s also not writing off AI as a technology altogether. “I’m not against AI in terms of medical breakthroughs.”

AI naysayers know that this technology is far broader than just chatbots and deepfake apps. Cyrus mentioned how useful optical character recognition is for scanning old documents at the library. But for her and the people who go to her workshops, the anti-AI movement isn’t about rejecting technology altogether so much as it is about advocating for more control, agency, and freedom in how people use technology.

“I think the forced adoption of AI on people’s devices might be the straw that’s breaking the camel’s back in some ways,” she said. “The awareness has been growing for a long time that these products and these companies that make them have an outsized influence over us, and that we’re not really using these products in the way that we would like to.”