Librarians are teaching people how to turn AI off

Librarians in the US are hosting packed workshops called "Avoiding AI" to teach people how to strip unwanted artificial intelligence features from their phones.

Charlie Bailey, a librarian in South Philadelphia, recently gathered twenty adults onto a colorful children's rug to walk them step-by-step through turning off Apple Intelligence and Google Gemini. The idea originally came from Hannah Cyrus, a librarian at the Bangor Public Library in Maine, who got tired of patrons constantly asking why AI was trying to finish their sentences or summarize one-line emails they could easily read themselves.

A rebellion over one-line emails

Cyrus normally draws a dozen people to an "Intro to Computers" class. When she listed "Avoiding AI," registration capped out at 30 immediately, prompting a waitlist and a Zoom livestream that drew 70 attendees per session. Dozens of librarians worldwide reached out asking for her slides.

When Bailey ran his own version in Philadelphia, the library's Instagram announcement racked up over 2,000 likes and 220 shares, far above the typical dozens of likes. He had to schedule a second session right away.

During Bailey's workshop, attendees turned the room into a digital self-defense group. One attendee shared a workaround for Google Search, pointing out that appending "&udm=14" to the URL hides all AI Overviews. Bailey scribbled the trick on a whiteboard alongside the teen Wi-Fi password. Others voiced worries over local data centers, power grids, and tech forced upon them at work, while still making clear they welcome AI in areas like medical research.

Why it matters

Tech giants have spent billions convincing us that AI is the future of every operating system, search bar, and keyboard. But pushing features onto devices without clear consent is sparking a real consumer backlash. People aren't necessarily anti-tech; they are tired of tools they didn't ask for meddling in their daily routines.

We think Big Tech's rollout strategy has hit a dangerous blind spot. By burying opt-out toggles deep in system menus, platforms assume friction will force adoption. Instead, as these library turnouts show, it is turning ordinary patrons into active dissenters who view learning how to disable AI as an essential piece of modern digital literacy.