#templates | #brain-dev | #mental-health | #bias | #environment | #people-to-follow | #how-to
Templates and letters
- Template: Letter from parents to teachers about genAI product consent – added 9/3/26
- Template: General opt-out letter for parents to send to schools (Source: Schools Beyond Screens) – added 8/18/26
- Example: Letters to teachers regarding laptop use reduction at school (Source: Tech In Check) – added 8/20/2026
- TBA: A family pledge for parents to use at home regarding AI use.
- TBA: Template letter to send to local politicians.
- TBA: A text for your parent’s group to raise the issue of AI harms
Brain development and learning
- Generative AI: the risk of cognitive atrophy (Polytechnique Insights)
- Artificial Intelligence Use Reprograms the Brain, Leading to Cognitive Decline (MIT)
- AI Didn’t Break Learning. It Removed the Need to Try (Psychology Today)
- AI Assistance Reduces Persistence and Hurts Independent Performance (COLM 2026)
- Does AI Limit Our Creativity? (Wharton)
- Kids who use ChatGPT as a study assistant do worse on tests (Popular Science)
- Increased AI use linked to eroding critical thinking skills
- A.I. will destroy critical thinking in K-12 (NY Times)
- Research Brief: Keeping classrooms human-centered (CFT)
- Effects of LLM Use and Note-Taking on Reading Comprehension and Memory (Computers & Education)
- Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt When Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task
- ChatGPT as a Cognitive Crutch: Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial on Knowledge Retention
Mental, social, emotional health
- AI Chatbots and Teen Suicide (State of Surveillance)
- Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (Science)
- AI Sycophancy & OpenAI (Georgetown Law)
- Parental reliance on digital devices to calm youngsters is linked to behavior problems (UC Irvine)
- OpenAI Says Changes Will Be Made to ChatGPT after Parents of Teen Who Died by Suicide Sue (CBS News)
- A Teen Was Suicidal. ChatGPT Was the Friend He Confided In. (NY Times)
- ChatGPT Served as “Suicide Coach” in Man’s Death, Lawsuit Alleges (CBS News)
- ChatGPT Encouraged Adam Raine’s Suicidal Thoughts. His Family’s Lawyer Says OpenAI Knew It Was Broken. (The Guardian)
- Weizenbaum’s nightmares: how the inventor of the first chatbot turned against AI (The Guardian)
- The Role of Humanization and Robustness of Large Language Models in Conversational Artificial Intelligence for Individuals With Depression: A Critical Analysis (JMIR Ment Health 2024)
Bias, ethics, racism, sexism
- Why AI’s Diversity Crisis Matters, and How to Tackle It (Nature)
- Where Does ChatGPT Get Its Data?
- Midjourney Is Easily Tricked Into Making AI Misinformation (Bloomberg)
- The Untold Number of People Implicated in Crimes They Didn’t Commit Because of Face Recognition (ACLU)
- How AI Reduces the World to Stereotypes (Rest of World)
- Sexist AI Is Even More Sexist than We Thought (VICE)
- These Women Tried to Warn Us about AI (Rolling Stone)
- Humans Are Biased. Generative AI Is Even Worse. (Bloomberg)
- PDF: The Unequal Burden of Data Centers (Kapor Center)
- Generative Artificial Intelligence Users Beware: Ethical Concerns of ChatGPT Use in Publishing Research
- ‘AI Is African Intelligence’: The Workers Who Train AI Are Fighting Back (404Media)
- Ghost Workers in the AI Machine (CWA Union)
Environment and climate impact
- AI and the Ugly Environmental Footprint it Leaves Behind (Columbia)
- AI Will Only Intensify Climate Change. The Tech Moguls Don’t Care. (The Nation)
- The Climate and Sustainability Implications of Generative AI (MIT)
- The hidden environmental cost of gen AI and its toll on climate (USA Today)
- Generative AI’s environmental costs are soaring — and mostly secret (Nature)
- Generative AI’s Other Environmental Problem (Georgetown Environmental Law Review)
- AI’s environmental costs threaten water, land and climate (UN)
- AI Is Accelerating the Loss of Our Scarcest Natural Resource: Water (Forbes)
Organizations to follow
- AI Resist List — Education and actions people can do to resist large-scale, generative AI systems.
- Algorithmic Justice League — An organization that combines art and research to illuminate the social implications and harms of artificial intelligence.
- California Federation of Teachers — A union comprised of 147 local unions representing dedicated education workers from early childhood through university.
- DAIR Institute — A globally distributed network of academics, activists, and engineers focused on mitigating AI harms. Based in Oakland, CA.
- Data Workers Inquiry — A global, radically participatory research initiative spanning nine countries across five continents.
- Institute for Families and Technology — A nonprofit organization promoting policies that enhance family formation and connection uninhibited by screens. Based in DC.
- Kapor Foundation — A non-profit foundation focusing on racial equity and technology, specifically expanding access and tech pathways for marginalized groups.
- Mothers Against Media Addiction — A grassroots movement of parents and allies fighting back against media addiction and creating a world where real-life experiences and interactions remain at the heart of a healthy childhood.
- Parents for AI Caution in Educational Spaces (PACES) — A collection of advocacy tools and research to help parents advocate for caution and restraint with AI in PreK-12 education spaces, with a focus on NYC schools but applicable for parents anywhere.
- Schools Beyond Screens — A national coalition of parents and educators advocating for evidence-based guidelines around technology in the classroom.
- Stop AI — A movement of everyday people using democratic and non-violent methods to disrupt the reckless development of destructive AI technology.
- Tech Safe Learning Coalition — A group with a mission to bring together like-minded organizations and individuals who share a unifying goal: keeping our children safe from predatory tech at school.
- The Collective SF — A group of parents across nine independent San Francisco and Marin schools, united around a shared mission: to reshape digital norms for our families, starting with keeping smartphones and social media out of kids’ hands during their most formative years.
How-to guides
- Avoid AI in Adobe Acrobat [PDF] — Step by step guide via LibraryFreedom.org
- How to disable AI in search engines and browsers (Fast Company, 7/1/2026)
- How to disable AI in Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Firefox, and Brave browsers (TechLockdown)