Besides the obvious of avoiding using or paying for AI websites here’s a few ideas I got that can help chip away at AI.
Reddit -> Lemmy. First of all you’re here so you’re already awesome! But there are lots of people still posting on Reddit so if you still have an account there try promoting Lemmy and shifting your focus to using Lemmy more and Reddit less. This helps because Reddit has agreements with Google for AI training and Reddit’s CEO is a friend of Elon Musk.
Twitter -> Bluesky and Mastodon. Twitter’s TOS gives permission to let Musk train his AI on anything you post. Bluesky and Mastodon forbid this and pledge not to train AI on what you post. Bluesky I personally see as more of a general replacement for Twitter. Mastodon seems to more want to be their own community of people especially people who are more technically inclined. But this is just my opinion, promote what you feel comfortable with.
Most people here I’m sure are already off Twitter but sadly even though it’s facing a slow decline it still receives more traffic than it should. Urge as many people as you can to switch to Bluesky. I recently realized that there are companies who manage lots of social media accounts for brands and celebrities. Influencing them to create a Bluesky account for their clients could cause a big shift towards Bluesky. Consider sending emails to companies, institutions and organizations to ask them to create a Bluesky account. Even if they just crosspost to both Bluesky and Twitter it’s still a step in the right direction.
Another benefit if you’re paying a Twitter subscription and if you quit it, you’ll be saving yourself lots of money and no longer funding Musk’s Nazi-bar platform.
Also one thing I like to do when I see someone share a link to a Tweet and directly link to x.com I’ll give them a Tweet viewer link. This subtly pushes back against using Twitter and reminds people that Twitter is owned by a Nazi.
Office 365 -> Libreoffice. Not only will you help fight against AI but you’ll also save yourself lots of money if you switch to Libreoffice.
Microsoft Windows -> Linux. People have had endless discussions about what distribution of Linux is best but I think if you’re a beginner maybe give Linux Mint a try.
Adobe Photoshop -> GIMP. Adobe is also involved in AI. I personally find GIMP suitable for everything I want to do but that’s just me.
Adobe Lightroom -> RawTherapee or Darkroom. These are two great open source projects that again for my admittedly minimal needs I find these excellent for my needs. They are free both as in freedom and cost so it only takes a few minutes and no risk to try these programs and see if they work for you.
AWS -> VPS/dedicated server. AWS is actually how Amazon makes a lot of there money. Do you really need AWS or could you host your website on a VPS or a dedicated server? Depending on how much traffic you get you might save a lot of money this way.
Another option is shared hosting or static website hosting.
Amazon Prime -> Canceled and just use free shipping when you have no choice but to use Amazon. Even if you don’t have prime you can still get free shipping once your cart is above the free shipping threshold which is generally above $25 or $35. I would also strongly suggest checking other websites for things you need to buy. You may find a higher quality or lower cost option elsewhere.
Tesla -> pretty much any other EV. Again just another reminder to boycott Tesla. Tesla cars are falling behind the competition and are considered to be the least reliable car. Buy another brand of EV so you don’t support Musk’s AI and far-right political ambitions.
With these steps I would recommend taking the action first yourself and try to get as many people to do likewise. The more people who do it the less money that goes to AI companies.
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Just skip Bluesky and go to Mastodon.
Bluesky was started by a freeze peach libertarian sociopath. It is now owned by a bunch of cryptobros.
Even if it is decent now (protip: it isn’t; lots of weird shit happening there from the owners), it will inevitably enshittify.
Just skip it. Corporate owned social media, if it isn’t evil out of the gate, will turn evil after they think they have you hooked.
Don’t go to BlueSky. It’s already getting enshittified and the admins are terrible at responding to actual user needs. They’re a step away from selling your data to AI companies.
The cool kids are on mastodon anyway
I really like Lemmy, but I feel when it relies on Reddit for so much of its content then Lemmy will shortly fall into a similar position where the content is indirectly fueling AI.
More original content needs to be on Lemmy and not using Reddit to get its content from bots or whatever.
I don’t use Reddit much since I went to Lemmy but see tons of bot post from Reddit data. If Reddit wasn’t around, how would Lemmy look? Would people post more here? Why are these bots enabled?
I believe this may be a larger issue, but if their aren’t enough people using the platform by itself without scraping content of a respective platform intended to replace — it may not last long.
The thing with those bots is I never see any interaction with their posts. Luckily, I rarely even see those posts anymore because they’re buried by the lack of interaction and/or upvotes.
reddit is mostly run by BOTs/AI and spammers. its the lack of community thats the problem, they are all on reddit are unlikely to come over.
Lemmy feels like reddit 12 years ago, which is awesome
I really like Lemmy, but I feel when it relies on Reddit for so much of its content
What communities have this problem? I only see original posts in the communities that I subscribe to, unless it’s specifically a post about something that was said on reddit.
About Amazon, you will not find a lower price anywhere else. That’s just one of Amazon’s rules. The way companies get around this is by changing up how they sell goods or what they label them. For example, Duracell will only sell 32 cells packs on Amazon and only 48 cells packs at Costco. That way they’re allowed to price them cheaper at Costco. But if you look for 32 cells, the cheapest option is Amazon.
This sucks, but better to be aware.
If the price is equal then it’s still best to buy from another platform. Often other sellers use better packaging than Amazon so your order is more likely to arrive in good condition when it makes it to your home. And you’re supporting business who are very likely less evil.
My personal experience is actually sometimes other websites can be cheaper despite the policy. You just have to check.
Another thing I should say but forgot to mention in my post is that buying used can be a great way to save money and avoid buying on Amazon.
This isn’t exactly true.
Much of what you may buy on Amazon isn’t branded, but rather is just a thing you need at the moment. For example, I needed a flat Ethernet cable and in an effort to not buy Amazon I went looking elsewhere and found Kenable where they should exactly what I needed for the ridiculously low price of £1.04.
Meanwhile on Amazon, the prices are all at least 3× that much.
About VPS/dedicated server - I wanted to setup a blog on Ghost. But I was very of setting up the whole thing on another VPS. Instead, chose to go with PikaPods. Excellent experience, great support, super cheap for those small ideas you want to experiment with.
Don’t we have our own share of bots and ai tankies?
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tankies are usually localized to thier instances, and any individual accounts will be blocked, there arnt that many. bots are less as well. its on reddit you cant stop the tsunami of bots and propaganda.
There are way more Bots than most people realize.
