TechCrunch piece about libraries hosting \u201cavoiding AI\u201d workshops<\/a> for people fed up with Big Tech.<\/p>\n\u201cAvoid AI\u201d workshops aren\u2019t acts of resistance. They\u2019re performative theater. They let staff signal their disdain for Big Tech while conveniently ignoring the bigger threats:<\/p>\n
A vastly larger surveillance apparatus that\u2019s been colonizing our patrons\u2019 lives for fifteen years: Chrome, Facebook, Instagram, Bluetooth beacons, WiFi tracking, location services, and the entire behavioral advertising economy. Fixating on ChatGPT, Copilot, and Gemini isn\u2019t principle. It\u2019s selective outrage dressed up as moral clarity.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t spend my career helping people avoid technology. I spent it helping them master it.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a profound difference.<\/p>\n
Teaching the avoidance of technology evolution is not a sustainable strategy. It\u2019s a coping mechanism for people who would rather feel righteous than useful. The public doesn\u2019t need community libraries leading them into a digital monastery. They need us to be ruthless, clear-eyed guides through an environment flooded with synthetic media, algorithmic manipulation, and tools that are getting more powerful by the month.<\/p>\n
The real opportunity, the one we\u2019re fumbling while we chase likes and retweets is to own the hardest, most necessary territory: AI literacy, deep digital privacy, information verification in an age of perfect fakes, and the ability to maintain personal agency when the machines are better at persuasion than most humans.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a growing need, not a shrinking one. That\u2019s work worthy of our institutions.<\/p>\n
Instead, too many of my former colleagues have decided the populist, anti-AI stance is the safer, more virtuous lane. They\u2019re not building relevance. They\u2019re accelerating their own obsolescence with a smile, convinced their Luddite cosplay constitutes courage.<\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Libraries don\u2019t survive by telling people the future is scary and they should hide from it. We survive by making people more capable in that future than they would be without us.<\/p>\n
The profession needs to choose: Are we serious, or are we just another group of frightened knowledge workers performing moral superiority while the ground shifts beneath us?<\/p>\n
The hot dog is NOT a steak. Call it what it is.<\/p>\n
Keep pretending avoidance equals ethics, or get serious and teach people how AI is already being used to persuade, profile, and manipulate them, and how to push back with competence instead of fear.<\/p>\n
It’s your choice now but it soon will be your patrons future.<\/p>\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Don\u2019t serve me a hot dog and call it tube steak. We both know better. If we think our role in a public library is to teach people to avoid technology, we\u2019ve misunderstood the assignment. Just read the TechCrunch piece about libraries hosting \u201cavoiding AI\u201d workshops for people fed up with Big Tech. \u201cAvoid AI\u201d … <\/p>\n
Continue reading “Your Choice. Their Future.”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[42,46,44,43,21,45],"class_list":["post-353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-ailiteracy","tag-democracy","tag-digitalequity","tag-informationliteracy","tag-libraries","tag-publiclibraries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/saveyourbreath.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/saveyourbreath.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/saveyourbreath.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saveyourbreath.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saveyourbreath.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=353"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/saveyourbreath.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":361,"href":"https:\/\/saveyourbreath.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353\/revisions\/361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/saveyourbreath.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saveyourbreath.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saveyourbreath.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/saveyourbreath.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1785501825023-300x169.png\")
If we think our role in a public library is to teach people to avoid technology, we\u2019ve misunderstood the assignment.<\/p>\n