Librarians are hosting viral ‘Avoiding AI’ workshops for people who are fed up with Big Tech
Librarians are hosting viral ‘Avoiding AI’ workshops for people who are fed up with Big Tech
图书馆员举办病毒式传播的“避开 AI”研讨会，为厌倦大型科技公司的人们提供指导
“Everybody’s on their phone at my program!” joked Charlie Bailey, a librarian in South Philadelphia. He’s just asked his audience to pull out their phones so that he can walk them through the steps of disabling Apple Intelligence and Gemini. Bailey stands at the front of a library classroom that’s outfitted for children – the focal point is the vibrant rug he’s standing on, which reminds us that M is for “moon” and Z is for “zebra.” But the 20-odd adults in the room aren’t here to learn about the alphabet. They’re at a workshop called Avoiding AI, which, in this context does not stand for “apple” and “igloo.” “大家都在我的活动上玩手机呢！”南费城的图书管理员查理·贝利（Charlie Bailey）开玩笑说。他刚刚要求听众拿出手机，以便引导他们完成禁用 Apple Intelligence 和 Gemini 的步骤。贝利站在一间为儿童布置的图书馆教室前——他脚下那块色彩鲜艳的地毯格外显眼，上面印着“M 代表月亮（moon），Z 代表斑马（zebra）”。但房间里的 20 多位成年人并不是来学习字母表的。他们参加的是一场名为“避开 AI”（Avoiding AI）的研讨会，在这里，AI 并不代表“苹果（apple）”和“冰屋（igloo）”。
“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,” Bailey told TechCrunch. Bailey starts the hour-long workshop with an overview of how AI chatbots and other consumer AI tools work, explaining why people might want to use these products, and why they might opt to abstain. Then, he walks through all of the most popular tech platforms and devices, showing step-by-step instructions on the projector to guide people through turning off specific features. “我的灵感来自于人们对 AI 工具被强加于身的那种挫败感，以及那种‘我们并未要求，但 AI 工具却突然充斥生活’的感觉，”贝利告诉 TechCrunch。贝利以一场一小时的研讨会开始，概述了 AI 聊天机器人和其他消费级 AI 工具的工作原理，解释了人们为何可能想要使用这些产品，以及为何他们可能选择拒绝。随后，他逐一演示了最流行的科技平台和设备，通过投影仪展示分步说明，引导人们关闭特定功能。
“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,” Bailey said. “It’s important, especially when it can be so difficult not to use them, and when the design seems to force adoption.” “作为一名图书管理员，我认为将此视为提升数字素养并帮助人们重新获得使用 AI 工具自主权是非常重要的，”贝利说。“这一点至关重要，尤其是在很难拒绝使用它们，且产品设计似乎在强制用户采用的情况下。”
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?’” 贝利的“避开 AI”研讨会灵感来自缅因州的图书管理员汉娜·赛勒斯（Hannah Cyrus）。在赛勒斯发表了一篇关于开发该研讨会的期刊文章后，全球数十位图书管理员联系了她，贝利就是其中之一。“在我从事的所有工作中，这种情况从未发生过，”赛勒斯告诉 TechCrunch。“以前从来没有人给我发邮件问：‘你能把你的计算机入门幻灯片发给我吗？’”
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.” 在班戈公共图书馆，读者在遇到任何涉及技术的问题时都会向赛勒斯求助。“我收到的问题越来越多，比如：‘我该怎么关掉这些（AI）东西？为什么它非要帮我写邮件？为什么它要总结我那句一眼就能看懂的邮件？’”赛勒斯说。“我决定，鉴于媒体对 AI 产品的过度炒作，这是一个很好的机会，可以教人们了解使用这项技术时到底发生了什么，并进一步教他们如果不想要使用，该如何将其关闭。”
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. 通常，赛勒斯的“计算机入门”课程大约有十几名学员。但对她第一场“避开 AI”研讨会感兴趣的人实在太多，以至于她不得不将报名人数限制在 30 人，开启候补名单，并通过 Zoom 分享研讨会内容。包括直播在内，赛勒斯的前两场研讨会每场都有约 70 人参加。
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. 当贝利效仿赛勒斯在费城举办研讨会时，反响同样空前。图书馆关于“避开 AI”活动的 Instagram 帖子获得了超过 2,000 个赞和 220 次转发，而该图书馆大多数帖子的点赞数通常不超过几十个。由于第一场报名人数过多，他不得不安排了第二场活动。
“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.” “作为一名信息专业人士，看到人们对 AI 持怀疑态度感觉很好，”贝利说。“看到有这么多人有同样的感受，感觉真的很棒。”
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. 研讨会期间，房间里的陌生人之间产生了一种同志情谊。当贝利邀请与会者分享他们自己的技巧时，有人解释说，在谷歌搜索链接后加上“&udm=14”可以隐藏 AI 搜索结果。贝利将这串字符写在白板上，旁边就是青少年 Wi-Fi 服务器的登录凭据。
“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.” “在当今世界，你费尽周折买了一套房，结果两年后，你家隔壁可能就建起了一个数据中心，”一位名叫约翰尼（Johnny）的与会者说。“我在工作中不断被强行灌输 AI，每次看到它，我就会想到环境问题，”另一位名叫加布里埃尔（Gabrielle）的与会者补充道。但她并没有完全否定 AI 这项技术。“我不反对 AI 在医学突破方面的应用。”
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. AI 的反对者们知道，这项技术远不止聊天机器人和深度伪造应用那么简单。赛勒斯提到了光学字符识别（OCR）在图书馆扫描旧文档时的实用性。但对她和参加她研讨会的人来说，反 AI 运动与其说是完全拒绝技术，不如说是倡导在人们如何使用技术方面拥有更多的控制权、自主权和自由。
“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.” “我认为在人们的设备上强制采用 AI，在某种程度上可能是压垮骆驼的最后一根稻草，”她说。“人们早就意识到，这些产品及其背后的公司对我们有着过大的影响力，而我们并没有真正按照自己想要的方式使用这些产品。”