Charlie Bailey, a librarian based in South Philadelphia, humorously remarked, “Everybody’s on their phone at my program!” as he instructed his audience to retrieve their devices. His immediate goal was to guide them through the process of deactivating features like Apple Intelligence and Gemini.
Bailey led the session from the front of a library classroom typically used for children, evident by the colorful rug beneath him depicting "M for moon" and "Z for zebra." However, the two dozen adults present were not there for an alphabet lesson. Instead, they were attending a workshop titled "Avoiding AI," a name that, in this setting, carries a different significance than its common phonetic associations.
Speaking to TechCrunch, Bailey explained his motivation: “I was inspired by the feeling of people’s frustration with AI tools being kind of forced onto them, and feeling like AI tools we didn’t ask for are suddenly everywhere in our lives.”
The hour-long workshop commenced with Bailey providing an overview of consumer AI tools, including chatbots, detailing their functionality. He discussed potential benefits for users as well as reasons one might choose to avoid them. Following this, he systematically guided attendees through popular tech platforms and devices, using a projector to display step-by-step instructions for disabling specific AI features.
Bailey emphasized the librarian's role, stating, “As a librarian, I think it’s important to see this as advancing digital literacy and helping people reclaim their autonomy over whether they want to use AI tools.” He added, “It’s important, especially when it can be so difficult not to use them, and when the design seems to force adoption.”
Bailey's inspiration for the "Avoiding AI" workshop came from Hannah Cyrus, a librarian based in Maine. He was among numerous librarians globally who reached out to Cyrus after she published a journal article detailing the development of her own workshop on the subject.
Cyrus shared her surprise with TechCrunch, remarking, “This has never happened before with anything I’ve worked on.” She further elaborated, “Nobody has ever been emailing me like, ‘Can you give me your Intro to Computers slides?’”
Patrons at the Bangor Public Library frequently sought Cyrus's assistance for a wide array of technological queries.
Cyrus observed a growing trend in inquiries: “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?’” She concluded, “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.”
While Cyrus's typical classes, such as "Intro to Computers," usually drew around a dozen participants, her inaugural "Avoiding AI" workshop garnered such overwhelming interest that registration was capped at 30, a waitlist was established, and the session was also offered via Zoom. Factoring in the livestream, approximately 70 individuals attended each of her first two workshops.
Bailey's decision to replicate Cyrus's workshop model in Philadelphia met with a similarly extraordinary response. The library's Instagram announcement for the "Avoiding AI" event accumulated over 2,000 likes and 220 shares, significantly outperforming the typical few dozen likes on most of their posts. Due to the high volume of registrations for the initial session, a second program was promptly scheduled.
“As an information professional, it feels good to see people skeptical of AI,” Bailey commented, adding, “It felt really good to see how many people share this feeling.”
A palpable sense of camaraderie developed among the diverse attendees during the workshop. When Bailey encouraged participants to share their own insights, one individual revealed that appending “&udm=14” to a Google Search URL would effectively filter out AI-generated results. Bailey promptly transcribed this string of characters onto a whiteboard, placing it alongside the teen Wi-Fi server's login details.
An attendee named Johnny voiced his concern, stating, “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.”
Gabrielle, another participant, added, “I keep getting AI shoved down my throat at work, and every time I see it, I think about the environment.” However, she clarified that she doesn't dismiss AI entirely, stating, “I’m not against AI in terms of medical breakthroughs.”
Critics of pervasive AI recognize that the technology extends well beyond chatbots and deepfake applications. Cyrus herself highlighted the utility of optical character recognition for digitizing historical documents at the library. For her and her workshop attendees, the movement isn't a wholesale rejection of technology, but rather an assertion of greater control, agency, and freedom in how individuals engage with it.
Cyrus concluded, “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 elaborated, “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.”
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