A small town library in the United States offers a "Farewell to AI" course to teach residents to turn off the AI ​​functions on their phones

Abstract:

According to Business Insider, a small library in North Chatham, New York, USA plans to hold a "Bye Bye AI" event to help residents turn off unwanted AI functions on their phones and computers. The event has not yet started, but the promotional poster has received more than

8,000 likes on Facebook

200 comments

Shay Waite, Director of the North Chatham Free Library

The North Chatham Free Library has only about 800 licensed readers. Curator Shay Waite is the only full-time librarian. She said the event stemmed from a real need from readers. Some people are annoyed by Gmail's auto-reply and auto-complete, while others are worried about the constant addition of new AI features to commonly used services.

This event flyer went viral on Facebook and received comments from all over the world

This library provides open technical consultation every week, and in April this year it also held an introductory AI class for the elderly. Waite said that she is willing to help readers who want to use large language models to improve prompt words, but the more common idea among people who come to seek help is that they have not used AI and do not want to use it.

Earlier this year, the library launched an "Introduction to Artificial Intelligence" course for seniors

The "Farewell to AI" approach was inspired by another librarian, Hannah Sellers. Cyrus has previously offered free courses to teach readers to turn off or avoid AI tools on mobile phones and computers. Writing in the Journal of Library Science, she argued that libraries can both help readers adopt technology and help them reject it. According to her, there are already

hundreds of librarians from all over the world

Waite attended an online lecture Sellers held for local librarians and then decided to try it out at his own library. She admitted that the posters had spread far beyond expectations, and since the event took the form of a drop-in, she could only help a limited number of people at a time. "If 20 people come, it's already a lot for me."