If you’ve heard our podcast, you probably know my stance on AI. Mostly generative AI, but also all this AI forced on us in settings and searches etc. I am vehemently against AI for several reasons – some of which was covered in this podcast episode.
For anyone who, like me, would prefer to remove the options of AI generating keypoints or showing AI imagery etc, then hopefully you’ll find this useful.
Note: If you are okay with AI, that is your perogative, please don’t inform me in the comments. This just means this post is not for you.
If you know of other methods to remove or de-select AI options on different platforms, feel free to let me know in the comments and I will update this post.
FireFox
If you use Firefox, you can unselect an AI option.
Go to menu (three lines), Settings
In the General tab, scroll down to the browsing section and untick “Allow AI to read the beginning of the page.”
Gmail
Apparently, Gemini is scanning emails and using them to train their AI.
Go to Settings > See all settings.
Scroll down to where it says Smart Features and uncheck the box. You may need to reload the page.
Then go back into the see all settings, scroll down again, and under the Smart Features it’ll say Google Workspace smart features and click the button there that says Manage workspace smart features settings. You’ll get a pop-up with two features to toggle off. Then hit save.
Big thanks to Rachel Poli for sharing this with me.
In Pinterest, go to the drop down menu. On the desktop (which is what I’m using), it’s the down arrow beside your avatar.
From the drop down menu select Settings.
Next go to Refine Your Recommendations.
Select the GenAI interests and untick the options.
Then select Privacy and Data
Untick the GenAI that uses your data to train.
Canva
Go to your profile, on desktop this appears as your avatar at the bottom left of the screen.
Next go to Privacy
Now, currently under privacy the AI options are not in use and your activity is not being used to “improve AI”. However, it’s good to be aware of this for when it activates.
Next go to AI Personalisation and unselect.
Next go to Permissions (these changes me only work for Teams) and select Magic and AI and untick the AI options you don’t want.
~ ~ ~
This information is for those who wish to have less AI selected on their platforms. Some of these you might find useful, others you might be okay leaving. It’s completely up to you. As is, if you want to keep all the AI options.
For those of us who prefer not to have AI activated in everything, I’ll keep adding to this page as I find ways to disconnect AI on different platforms.
Have a great weekend
Ari
PS: It’s interesting, that when I added tags to this post – every tag I added about removing AI, Deactivating AI – vanished the moment it was added. Took several attempts to get just two to stay.
Source: Images from Canva and screenshots from me.
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Excellent post. Thank you so much for this, Ari. So sad we have to even do this because they’re cramming AI into everything, but I’m so thankful for such helpful posts.
Glad you found it useful. I know, I am so tired of every platform, every software EVERYTHING just shouting out “hey, look at this AI we’re forcing you to have.”
It was funny reading that some executive at Microsoft is really frustated that people aren’t “interested” in AI. The tech people in Silcon Valley think it’s the bees knees and instead, regular people are like “nah, don’t want it”
And then the technies are like, “wait, what?”
It’s typical from people looking at the result and not the journey. Thats why they think AI “art”, “writing” and “music” are what everyone wants – the end product.
Thank you so much for this post, Ari. I have recently dealt with AI on Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. To do this you click on the Meta AI circle which is blue, turquiose and pink and you are then invited to ask anything. You then type in /reset-ai and AI goes to sleep!
Thanks Claire! That’s good to know. It’s so frustrating that all this AI is just forced on us. I would love to just be able to delete it all off my computer and phone.
Thanks for sharing this Ari. Our “hot potato” topic over here right now is AI singer Breaking Rust’s song “Walk My Walk”, currently the No. 1 song on Billboard’s Country Digital Song Sales chart. I don’t listen to a country station so I had to Google it to hear it, but some country stations are refusing to play it.
It’s shocking that we have AI doing the fun, creative jobs – the ones people would love to do full-time, the ones we enjoy as hobbies. This is why I can never get behind AI. It’s not being used to do horrid, or monotonous jobs, but thieving from creatives to replace them.
All because rich people want to get more rich and lazy people want to the rewards without any of the journey, talent, creativity and skill that comes from learning.
Too many people are just tuned in to wanting more money all the time. Forget the human touch of art and creativity. If they can exploit real artists, actors, musicians etc to make money, too many people will do it.
It’s a sad world we live in today Ari on so many levels. I keep hearing how company hiring personnel are using AI to sort through resumes … not just weeding them out by using key words like has been done for years, but letting AI pick the best candidate, with no human intervention. On the business report on my radio station, there is so much discussion as to people losing their jobs, recent college grads despondent – in the beginning it was fun, even futuristic, now, not so much.
AI is so foolish. You have milliionnaires and billionnaires openly telling companies that AI will stop them having to hire real people… and we’re all sat here like – “ok, but when no one can get a job and we all have no money, who’s buying your products?”
It’s thoughtless and created by people who want to encourage laziness and lack of skill and talent.
It’s painful to see it replacing entry level jobs – the ones that college kids need when they graduate to start moving into the work place.
The good thing is some of the tech executives are starting to realise many people dont want it. Right now, it’s giving them almost no money – so they will get everyone “hooked” and then start charging.
But if there aren’t enough people interested, it will fall flat. I do believe there is an AI bubble and it’s going to burst. 😉
Yes, it is sad Ari and the recent college grads, who might have thought AI was pretty cool when researching school papers, etc., now find it backfiring. We don’t need something that will take away our creativity, our purpose … being reduced to letting the computer tell the tale that should be your tale to tell?
Thank you, this is very helpful. Forced AI drives me crazy.
me too 🙂
I couldn’t agree more! It is shocking how it’s forced on everyone, because if all these tech places actually allowed us to categorically state “no, I don’t any of this” they’d realise it isn’t profitable. I know a lot of it’s currently free, but that’s to get people “addicted” and dependent on it so that they can then start charging.
A lot of people will lose the ability to think critically, to create or even to communicate clearly with all this nonsense.
Any time I find some other way to remove or disable some horrid AI add-on, I’m doing it immediately. If I have to, eventually I’ll go back to pen and paper, letter writing and typewriter. lol
I’m starting to really miss the good-ol-days of analogue. 😉
Glad you found this useful, Darlene.
“A lot of people will lose the ability to think critically, to create or even to communicate clearly with all this nonsense.” That is my fear too.