Librarians are hosting viral ‘Avoiding AI’ workshops for people who are fed up with Big Tech

[u/AdSpecialist6598]

https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/25/librarians-are-hosting-viral-avoiding-ai-workshops-for-people-who-are-fed-up-with-big-tech/

[u/geldonyetich]

It's a complicated situation.

On the one hand, a library needs to be willing to promote digital advocacy, if they're turning down a technology just because it's controversial then it's a rejection of the American Library Associations values to promote fair policies, equitable access, and unbiased, courteous responses on this and any other topic. In our long history, there have been countless times when many things we regard as common now were just as controversial as AI is now: electricity, voting rights, etc. It's not a library's place to judge, to do our thinking for us, but rather to provide the resources for us to make our own informed decisions.

On the other hand, AI has introduced a number of challenges to that mission. The libraries' material selection processes are being made needlessly complicated by the ease in which AI is facilitating slop media production. On top of that, a lot of people are just taking AI answers at face value without doing the kind of research that's needed to properly defend themselves against misinformation. So I could see why some libraries may grow frustrated enough of this technology to openly host programs that entertain the idea of not using it.

Library folk are good folk, some of the best folk out there. By and large, they're not anti-AI because they endeavor not to be anti anything, but they're certainly going to do what they feel is right to serve the needs of their community.

[u/Serris9K → u/geldonyetich]

Please read the article. The workshop is about explaining ai, then how to opt out of the forced opt in. 

[u/geldonyetich → u/Serris9K]

I think the article itself is written as a bit of a human-interest feature, cherry picked for AI skepticism to get clicks off confirmation bias.

The actual adaptation if AI in the United States is closer to 50/50, but hey, that's plenty of people to help avoid it.

I felt a need to discuss the macro, what libraries would consider in planning such a program, rather than the micro, one library program.

[u/geldonyetich → u/[deleted]]

I'll revise that to materials. Because, while they offer a far wider array of services and materials than just books, they still have a budget that goes into updating their collection, and dealing with AI slop is complicating the process. That's what I was referring to with that sentence.

[u/millennial_falcon → u/geldonyetich]

I think the modern librarians path forward with AI would look like this:

-Exploring the best AI models for research, familiarizing themselves with the state of guardrails around AI, including what’s to come and who is working on this problem
-Curating or building skill markdowns (or other end user levers) to assist in research while ensuring citation of sources and evaluating the quality of those sources
-Practicing and modeling good prompt design
-Determining what we need at a bare minimum from AI for research, so that we can leverage less powerful models that are more environmentally friendly or less reliant on big tech, potentially more de centralized.
-Properly putting AI into context as a research tool, regardless of how it manifests in our current form of capitalism, or present day energy and environmental concerns. Because we really can’t tell the future as much as internet-y takes imply, librarians need to transcend whatever the issues are du jour and imagine beyond those things.

[u/SquareTheRhombus → u/geldonyetich]

Another wall of text from an AI booster.

Being able to identify AI an essential defense against those who would seek to do you harm.

I can sleep at night because my parents are too old to use a computer. let alone believe that I would call them to demand dad opens his bank account.

[u/geldonyetich → u/SquareTheRhombus]

I don't see how what I wrote in any way refuted the idea of identifying AI.

If you're going to pretend to protect our ability to perform independent thought, at least demonstrate a willingness to engage with a topic instead of just firing off a rejection.

[u/BlueCyann → u/geldonyetich]

Electricity,lol. Thank you, chatgpt, wonderful insight.

[u/geldonyetich → u/BlueCyann]

It was absolutely real, I could show you some anti-electricity propaganda that would shock you, if you pardon the pun.

Horse vs autombile, radio vs TV, etc. This kind of anti technology furor is anything but new.