Hurt Generative AI - Blackwall.gg
This is a short article on how to hurt and avoid generative AI, doing these things, and leaving AI services has a small, but incremental negative impact on generative AI, by depriving it of training data, revenue, and public support, as well as supporting the people that don't use or develop it, and distancing yourself from it.
Spread This
Spreading this to people helps raise awareness, and more people doing these things, on any scale, will make them more impactful, however if you can't or dont want to, doing these things individually still has an impact and can still help YOU personally escape generative AI
Some of the biggest players in email are of course, large Gen-AI and data brokering companies, such as google(gmail) and microsoft(outlook), who have no respect for your privacy, and may see your emails as a large dataset from which to train on. So here are alternatives to switch to, that are just as convenient, if not more.
1.) TutaMail
Tutamail is free, encrypted, and convenient, with optional upgrades via subscription, they have said they will not integrate AI into their mail, and have no focus on genAI
Even if they wanted to they CAN'T train on or sell your emails due to their encryption
2.) ProtonMail
Proton develops an LLM model, and for this reason tutamail is reccomended over them
ProtonMail is ALSO a free, encrypted, and convenient email provider, with optional subscription upgrades, and they provide a litany of other services listed in this document, and despite their LLM, and its partial integration into the email client, it can't train on your data.
Search Engines
Search engines are another big target of genAI companies, both the data, and the results they serve you are valuable to them, and thats why you should switch to a more private, but still convenient search engine
1.) StartPage
Startpage is a search engine that uses bing and google results, but gives you the privacy you deserve, and with no LLM answers, they are in my opinion the best choice, However, they have a separate AI service, it is not forced onto you, but there are promotional popups unless you disable them in settings.
Browser
Of course, browsers are also something AI companies have stuck their hands into, and even mozilla/firefox is no longer so private, and are supporting gen ai, as well as being funded in large part by google. So here are some convenient alternatives that don't sacrifice anything
1.) Waterfox
Waterfox is a more private, and user focused fork of firefox, they have stated they will never add AI features, and will remove any mozilla add to the main branch of firefox, it feels exactly like firefox does, the perfect replacement. and you can easily import all your data from firefox, such as bookmarks
2.) Vivaldi
Vivaldi is a chromium based browser, with a focus on privacy and customization, and they have stated they will not incorporate generative AI into their browser