How to Boycott AI to Save the Planet
I know…AI is pretty unavoidable in today’s world. But that doesn’t mean we have to use it 24/7. We can limit our usage pretty heavily but also pretty easily!
I feel the same about plastic, gasoline, and things like that. It is nearly impossible to forgo using plastic 100% of the time. So instead of focusing on perfection, I would rather people cut out as much as they physically can. That’s how I feel about AI.
Absolutely, in a perfect world, we wouldn’t have to worry about AI usage or plastic consumption. Alas, we do not live in a perfect world. Let’s just do our best. I personally cannot avoid AI on platforms like Meta, TikTok, and Google, but I can simply limit my usage of those apps. I use tools that incorporate AI, such as Grammarly and Canva, that I cannot work around unless I totally give up these tools. Call me not extreme enough, but these tools aid me in work and school, so I’m keeping them around.
Not to mention, in the same way we live zero waste, it makes more of a difference if we target the higher-hitting items. Generative AI, for example, is much more environmentally harmful than my autocorrect tool from Grammarly. It makes more sense to hit those areas that have bigger impacts first and cut out the little guys later as we can.
This post is to educate folks on how to break up with AI if they so choose. This post is not to judge someone for using one thing or another. And if you’d like the backstory on why I dislike AI so much as an environmentalist, you can check out the environmental impact of artificial intelligence in this post.
Unsubscribe and Cancel Memberships
The biggest and best thing we can do to boycott AI is to quit giving them our money! If you have a ChatGPT membership, consider cancelling it. I truly think that even if you still use these chatbots, but you do it for free, it’s much better than training the AI while also paying them. This is a great first step that I also recommend when people boycott other wasteful brands like Amazon.
Just Stop Using Chat Bots
Maybe you’re a free AI user. If so, try going without it as much as you can. Especially for things you can just use a search engine for. Preferably, a search engine that doesn’t use AI like Mojeek. I just swapped over to that while writing this post! It’s super easy and 100% free. I love Ecosia since they plant trees, but they do use Google for their searches, and they also use AI. I don’t love this, but they’re clearly better than companies like Google. So it’s a fine option if you want to stick with Ecosia!
Anyway, if you find yourself heading to ChatGPT or Gemini or any other AI chatbot to search for the weather, the news, a scholarly source, or other things like that, try putting your query into Mojeek or Ecosia instead. AI requests have been found to use more energy and water than a regular search engine search. So this is a great way to conserve resources!
This may be a big ask in today’s society, but I challenge you to go further. Avoid asking AI to write emails for you and complete your homework. Stop asking AI to make up games for your next party or to lesson plan for you. Why? Well, one, you’re literally training AI to take your job. Everything you input into a chatbot, it is learning. It will get better. Second, it’s good to use your brain! Don’t let it atrophy! You could even try asking a colleague, friend, or coworker for help with whatever you need help with. Many of us have already done this in our adult lives. AI is SO new. So put those “old” skills into practice!
At the end of the day, I just ask that you be mindful of using chatbots. Cut back a little at a time, and maybe one day you can see that you can live without them.
Stop Buying Tech from These Companies
Big Tech companies deserve our boycotts as much as Big Oil does. Tech is extremely harmful to mine, and it’s also done extremely unethically. I talk about that in this video. Not only that, but they are the leading companies in AI tech as well. Many of them are also implementing AI into their devices, and you cannot opt out. The biggest ones are Google’s Pixel phones and Apple’s iPhones. This looks like AI chatbots automatically on the devices, and also the AI scanning your photos, just to name a few of these features.
What should we buy instead?
Well, first, make your devices last as long as they can, and keep them for as long as you can. I’ve had my iPhone since 2021. It’s showing signs of age, such as a worse battery life, but other than that, it gets the job done for me. I’m always tempted to upgrade, especially since content creation is my job. But it works, and I’ve learned to live with that. It does everything I need it to do, and I’m keeping it until it is absolutely dead.
Then, when you do need to upgrade a device, try secondhand. Trusted sights like Backmarket refurbish tech and sell it as good as new, but for much less environmental impact and cost to you! Though I have also purchased tech secondhand on Facebook Marketplace, eBay, and OfferUp, these pose risks since you just have to 100% trust the seller.
Lastly, if you do need to buy tech brand new, opt for better tech companies. All tech is inherently wasteful, but you can choose companies that are transparent about their supply chains, use recycled materials, let you repair their devices, and things of that nature. One example is Fairphone!
Check out the book Digital Minimalism, which we read for my Eco Book Club, to learn more about breaking up with technology!
Block AI Accounts
To be honest, I haven’t even opened my TikTok app in WEEKS because it has just been overrun with AI slop since the US company purchase a few months ago. No matter how many accounts I blocked, it would just show me more. I guess that helped my screen time and social media usage!
But I urge you to do the same when you see an account that is 100% AI generated, uses AI scripts or captions, or sells some sort of AI product: block them, report not interested, and spread the word that these (often popular) accounts use AI. This 100% goes for brands, too. Duolingo announced this year that it would be implementing AI into its learning models. They received a ton of backlash and were blocked after that.
Sure, there is an aspect of social media that is meant to be entertaining, and AI can be entertaining, but social media is also for the social aspect! It is a place for us to find new artists (humans making art), connect with old friends, find new friends, and spread the word about global issues. It’s a way for humans to stay connected. AI slop is keeping us disconnected, and it’s by design. So make sure you tailor your social media to see real humans.
Avoid Generative AI
What is Generative AI? Here’s what Wikipedia has to say:
“Generative artificial intelligence, commonly known as generative AI or GenAI, is a subfield of artificial intelligence that uses generative models to generate text, images, videos, audio, software code (vibe coding), or other forms of data. These models learn the underlying patterns and structures of their training data, and use them to generate new data in response to input, which often takes the form of natural language prompts.”
This goes hand in hand with blocking the social media accounts that use GenAI. Though I encourage you to also go without this when you can! I get it, trends where you can see what your future children may look like or what you look like dressed up as Santa Claus are fun, but they are harming the planet, and they steal art from human artists! AI copies styles and even plagiarizes fully from other artists. Many artists in this article have claimed that the AI was copied so closely that the AI even kept the artist’s signature on the piece. Yikes.
But it also limits jobs for human artists! Artists on social media are sharing that AI is sold more cheaply since it requires less labor and can be “made” on a huge scale since it doesn’t need any labor. This impacts human songwriters, authors, painters, and more.
Turn Off AI Settings
Those tech companies we talked about before? Yeah, they’re training AI with your information without your knowledge. From TikTok automatically putting an “edit with AI” feature on every video on that platform with no way to opt out of your entire account (a big reason I stopped posting over there) to Google putting AI into your emails and more. I found out Google’s AI was in my email when I got a YouTube ad for a product I never typed into the Google Search Engine. I only was emailing about it. Creepy!
Thankfully, these settings are easy to turn off. But these “opt-out” models are invasive. The AI is automatically placed in our apps and devices, and we have to do the hard work to turn them off. Other countries have “opt-in” models where the norm is no AI, and you can turn it on if you so choose. This should be the norm in the US, too!
Advocate for AI Legislation
Speaking of, let’s get loud about these issues! Yes, it’s still extremely important to boycott AI and stop giving these companies our money. Money is power, and these companies see that! But it’s also powerful to stop them from the other end with legislation. When you can, vote for AI regulations. If you can’t, call and email your reps (more info on how here) so that they can vote for and write AI legislation. No, this does not mean censorship. Taylor Lorenz has a great series on YouTube about this.
This could look like:
Ensuring artists are protected and their art is not stolen
AI does not take our jobs
AI is not used to create deep fakes and illegal materials
AI companies must follow environmental regulations (check out more about environmental racism here. AI data centers are disproportionately impacting people of color and poor communities more than anyone else)
And things of this nature! You can also help by sharing petitions and just generally spreading the word on social media, too. But…
Think before sharing
Be wary of what you share. If an image looks a bit off, do some investigating to see if it could be AI before hitting the “repost” button. If a piece of news seems too good, too bad, or too weird to be true, give it a full read through or cross-check other sources to see who is reporting on it to make sure you’re not about to share AI-generated clickbait.
Be aware of the videos you like, the images you share, the accounts you follow, and things along these lines. Even human-made propaganda and misinformation can spread easily. It’s never a bad idea to give that bit of information another check before sharing!
And get AI-literate! There are many accounts on social media that help us debunk what is AI-made and what is human-made. Give them follows and watch their videos fully. Learn their tips. The better we can all spot AI, the better we can avoid these accounts and products and follow other tips on this boycott list.
Spread the Word
As you become more AI-literate, spread the word! Share tips you see on how to spot AI and how to avoid AI. I also encourage you to call out (nicely) people who use and share AI. If someone shares an image that you can spot to be GenAI, comment or DM them to let them know why its AI. This can ensure that they delete the post (which could be misinformation) and by letting them how how you knew, it can help them learn to better avoid it in the future.
We can have a tech-filled future without it destroying the planet and our livelihoods in the process. We just need to get ahead of it now before it’s too late. We need AI to be environmentally friendly (or less harmful) NOW and not in 20 years. We need protections for workers and poor communities NOW and not when it’s too late.
How do you boycott AI? Let us know below!
As always, remember that your small actions make a big difference in the long run :)
Emma
