Easy Ways You Can Fight AI and Save Money

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.