It’s pretty impossible to avoid AI, but you can manage its impact.
AI Alternatives
Be discerning about when you use AI, and choose these options for avoiding it entirely.
I Need Therapy Support...​​
Turning AI off...
​​Add "-AI" to your Google searches to turn off the AI Overview​
Install UBlock Chrome Extension
Install AI Blocklist
NARROW VS GENERAL
Narrow AI is designed for a specific task and uses drastically less energy than General AI platfos like ChatGPT that do it all.
Narrow AI models include...
Grammarly for Proofreading
​Otter.ai for Notetaking
Symbolab for Math Help
​Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant
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Some large-scale platforms, including ChatGPT, let users toggle between different models, which can have varying levels of energy efficiency.
BETTER PROMPTING
Knowing how to best communicate with the AI platform will help limit the number of prompts and the energy load of inference.
Limit your use of image and video generators as they are the most carbon intensive. If you want to play around with one, watch a tutorial first to understand how it works.
Maximilian Dauner, a researcher at the Technical University of Berlin who studies the environmental impact of AI systems, suggests the following for limiting your prompts:
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Avoid vague questions that could trigger the model to ramble
through an elaborate answer -
Tell it to give you its response in bullet points
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Use phrases like ‘keep it brief’ in your prompts
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Write specific prompts that are less likely to require followups
