The off-switch checklist

The chapter on turning off unwanted AI teaches the pattern, because menu names drift and memorised paths stop working. This page is the companion that does the actual work: a checklist to walk through, in order, with the search terms that find these settings even after they have been moved.

Read the date at the top of this page

Everything here is deliberately written as things to search for rather than menus to open, because the menus change every few months and a page of exact paths would be wrong by winter. If something described here isn’t where this page suggests, search the settings for the terms given and it will usually surface within a few seconds.

How to work through it

Half an hour, in this order, highest value first. Stop whenever you’ve had enough — the list is arranged so that quitting early still leaves you better off.

In every settings screen, the three searches that find most of it are AI the assistant’s brand name suggestions. Add summar to catch summarise, summary and summarisation in one go.

1. Your browser

Start here. It sees more of your life than anything else on your computer.

Look for a single master control first. Some browsers now group every AI feature behind one switch, including features added in later updates. Where that exists it is far better than a dozen individual toggles, because it covers things that don’t exist yet.
Then the individual entries. Where there’s no master switch, the controls are usually split between a privacy section and a section named after the assistant. Expect to visit both.
Check the address bar and the sidebar separately. Search suggestions, an assistant panel and page summarising are often three different settings in three different places.
Check your search engine’s own settings too, in your account on its website rather than in the browser.

2. Your computer

Anything that records or indexes your screen. This is the highest-stakes item on the page. If your system has a feature that periodically captures what you’re looking at, switch it off and delete what it has already collected — those are normally two separate buttons, and doing only the first leaves the archive in place.
The built-in assistant’s own settings panel. Look for what it’s allowed to see: your messages, your mail, your photos, your files.
Notification and message summarising. Often a separate switch from the assistant itself.
Writing tools built into the operating system, which may have their own data settings.

3. Your phone

Same idea, smaller screen, and two items that deserve particular attention.

The keyboard. It sees literally everything you type, including into other people’s apps. Check what it sends and what it offers to write for you.
Anything offering to answer, reply or summarise for you in messages, mail or calls.
The photo app’s cloud analysis settings, which are usually distinct from the search feature that has existed for years and is fine.
Voice assistants and smart speakers, where the setting worth finding is whether recordings are kept and reviewed, and how to delete what already exists.

4. The two or three programs you live in

Your email, your notes, whatever you write in. Not everything you own — this is the step where people burn an afternoon for no benefit. In each one, look for whether your content is used to improve the product, and whether a summarising or drafting feature is reading things in the background.

5. Your online accounts

The setting that governs whether your data trains a model frequently lives on a website rather than in the software on your desk. Check the account pages of the two or three services you use most. This is the step people miss, because nothing in the program tells you it’s there.

Worth writing down

What you changed, and when

Keep a plain text file. One line per change: the date, the program, the setting, and what you set it to. Updates sometimes turn these back on, and in six months you will not remember what the original state was or which ones you decided to leave alone on purpose.

Re-read your list twice a year, or any time an update announces something new and exciting. Ten minutes, twice a year, is the real maintenance cost of staying in charge of this.

What to leave alone

Spell check, autocorrect, photo search, spam filtering, voice transcription, and the accessibility features covered in what it’s genuinely good at. These have quietly used machine learning for years, they mostly run on your device, and they earn their keep. Turning them off is how a half-hour becomes a hobby.

The features worth your attention are the newer ones that read your content in bulk — summarising your inbox, watching your screen, or acting on your behalf.