Turn off/Block AI features

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What option(s) is/are there to keep the AI turned off?

You could always go into Preferences => Plugins => AI Providers and disable all the plugins, go into keyboard shortcuts and remove any AI related shortcuts, etc.

Or you could simply accept that until you configure AI, it will not be used.

Heck, I will even quote the second message in this thread since you don't seem to have bothered to comprehend it (I had to resist the temptation to bold the first letter(s) of each word):

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

There are no AI features in calibre unless you explicitly enable them. You dont even need to disable the plugins, they do nothing (even their code is not loaded) until and unless they are configured. The worst you get is a few menu entries. Simply ignore them.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Maverynthia

I second this. Even including the options means that you have no problems with supporting LLMs and GenAI destroying the environment and taking jobs from humans. Up to and including writing books.

Another ridiculous argument - taking jobs from humans. I bet they said the same when the printing press, the steam engine and the washing machine were invented, among many others. And of course... wait for it... computers!

All these things rendered some previous jobs obsolete. That's how it has always been. Humans just learn and adapt.

[DNSB]

One of my ancestors co-owned a coachworks. Which automobile manufacturers put an end to. Though whether the pollution from the horses pulling the buggies or from the internal combustion engine did more damage to the environment is iffy. You might want to read some articles on the horse manure crisis in the late 1800 for example.

Some examples are:
The Big Crapple: NYC Transit Pollution from Horse Manure to Horseless Carriages

The Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894

The Great Manure Crisis

Just for the heck of it, I'm adding an image of a manure coated street.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by kurothelazycat

Can't the AI stuff have been made an optional download, like the other plugins? That way, for people who don't want it, we don't even have to have it on our computers, while people who do want to use, can add it if they wish. It doesn't seem like something that should have been included in the main program by default.

There's no AI code on your computer. Unless you have specifically gone into the plugins and connected them with the third-party or local AI of your choice.

[rjwse@aol.com]

Also, with the energy and water requirements of AI I think it should be saved for more important things like medical research, not asking AI to write a school paper. What a waste...

I had forgotten the news article that said a new AI center being built would require an entire electricity production facility, one large enough to power an entire city. That is to say, AI needs more electricity than a garden-variety server farm. At first consideration that does sound extravagant, excessive, and wasteful. However, it possibly (probably) will come to pass that AI itself will come up with quantum computers vastly more powerful and much more efficient and speedier such that the whole-nine-yards might run off an old-ass nine volt battery. As for medical research, AI will be the tool coming up with cancer cures and genetic error correction. I'm not being argumentative, just playing AI-as-devil's advocate.

[DiapDealer]

I currently don't need or use any of Calibre's conversion, reader, server, or input plugin code. Is there anything I can do so I don't have to download any of that "bloat" and hide it in all the menus so I never have to encounter any of it? Thanks.

[rjwse@aol.com]

I currently don't need or use any of Calibre's conversion, reader, server, or input plugin code.

I just bought a new, dandy 2025 Toyota and I totally agree with you! I don't use A/C, heater, tranny, engine, or even tires. I just listen to the radio in it while it's parked. It was suggested to me that I could have just gotten by for radio-only usage by just buying a radio but I don't like to admit that because that would sound way-weird.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I currently don't need or use any of Calibre's conversion, reader, server, or input plugin code. Is there anything I can do so I don't have to download any of that "bloat" and hide it in all the menus so I never have to encounter any of it? Thanks.

Yeah. I don't use the server at all, for example. Or the cover browser. Or the cover grid. Or sharing books by e-mail. Or annotations and highlights in the viewer. Or the tag mapper. I'm sure there are other features I don't use either. Ergo, all this is excess bloat. Please make it optional!

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DNSB

You could always go into Preferences => Plugins => AI Providers and disable all the plugins, go into keyboard shortcuts and remove any AI related shortcuts, etc.

Or you could simply accept that until you configure AI, it will not be used.

Heck, I will even quote the second message in this thread since you don't seem to have bothered to comprehend it (I had to resist the temptation to bold the first letter(s) of each word):

Thank you. I'm just going to ignore the AI for now. No more complaints here.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I currently don't need or use any of Calibre's conversion, reader, server, or input plugin code. Is there anything I can do so I don't have to download any of that "bloat" and hide it in all the menus so I never have to encounter any of it? Thanks.

As usual, that totally misses the point!

Related: https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/...i_browser_ban/

Having the ability to turn it on is the thin end of a very nasty wedge. It's not the same kind of thing as a other optional features.

If it exists at all it should only be as a 3rd party totally optional plug-in.

[DiapDealer]

You are absolutely correct that someone is totally missing the point. And even that it happens all the time. We just have a disagreement about who that might actually be.

Hint: it's the one who just can't avoid preaching against the evils of AI in every single thread that so much as mentions AI.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Quoth

It's not the same kind of thing as a other optional features.

Sure it is. It's only not the same kind of thing when you have an unhealthy obsession with controlling every single narrative concerning AI.

Also... before you ask if I read the article you linked to: It is my opinion that comparing the article's discussion about agentic browsers to calibre's optional opt-in-only AI powered features is quite a bit of a stretch. If not just plain disingenuous. Especially when considering the article's very clearly defined parameters when referring to something as an agentic browser.

There is no "thin edge of a nasty wedge" to see with Calibre here. Idiots have unwittingly shared more of their personal info - with evil agents on the web - than they should do long before AI came along. AI's not going to move the needle between those who do it by accident or (stupidity), as opposed to those who do it by free choice, one bit.

[Quoth]

OSNews @osnews@mstdn.social

Microsoft will allow you to remove “AI” actions from Windows 11’s context menus

With the current, rapidly deteriorating state of the Windows operating system, you have to take the small wins you can get: Microsoft is now offering the option of removing "AI" actions from Windows 11's context menus. buried deep in the Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 26220
https://www.osnews.com/story/143987/...context-menus/

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Quoth

OSNews @osnews@mstdn.social

Microsoft will allow you to remove “AI” actions from Windows 11’s context menus

What AI actions? I don't have any.

[Gormagon]

Am I the only one who is reminded of modern Luddites when reading this thread?

"The Luddites were members of a 19th-century movement of English textile workers who opposed the use of certain types of automated machinery due to concerns relating to worker pay and output quality. They often destroyed the machines in organised raids."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite

Originally Posted by rjwse@aol.com

AI will be the tool coming up with cancer cures and genetic error correction.

You have a time machine, don't you? I doubt that AI by itself will come up with a cure for any disease. It may be helpful finding some molecules that are more potent than previously available or offer new targets. After all pattern recognition is something AI is very good at and computers (or some form of AI) is already used to optimize pharmacologically active molecules.

Personally I really don't know what to do with AI. I recently bought the Viwoods AIPaper Reader which has an app that let's one use different LLMs. I asked one of these LLMs what to do with it. Then a large text wall came and I still don't know what to do with it. One thing I did though, was to ask for books that are in style similar to the 3 books Joe Keenan wrote, which I really enjoyed reading multiple times. Since I haven't read any of the recommandations so far I can't say how accurate these are.
Anyway...I don't have to use this AI app (but I could if I want) and I bought the device as a small and light reader. I guess it's the same with Calibre, which I only use to convert something to epub now and then. I really don't like the way Calibre handles the sorting of files. I'd rather have something that just stores some meta data of all the folders I have already sorted my epubs, pdfs, cbr, cbz and other files into.