Google Will Cut Off Search for Schools That Ban A.I.
Designing responsible AI for learning
Starting early next year, Google will switch off A.I. tools in its K-12 software unless administrators opt in. But schools that block A.I. entirely will also lose Google search, since search and A.I. are now deeply integrated. With Chromebooks and Classroom dominant in U.S. classrooms, districts face a stark trade-off: accept Google's A.I. or give up search.
Search and A.I. are deeply integrated. Students will not have access to search, and they'll see a message from their school that indicates it's not available.
- karmickoala
Somewhat related: did you know that you cannot disable GMail's GenAI features without disabling the traditional ML powered features, such as smart inbox, which predates LLMs? In this case, Google/Alphabet is conflating GenAI/LLMs with traditional machine learning, so you can't opt out of genai---which necessarily requires access to your data by the models---without deactivating the previous non-LLM powered features.
Which I get it, they indeed can use LLMs to improve the previous traditional ML pipeline. However I believe bundling these options together shouldn't be legal and I never expected Google to employ dark patterns like this. When I subscribed, these features were provided by traditional ML, perhaps some BERT-like encoder architecture at most, however now I cannot keep that previous functionality if I don't wish to grant LLMs access to my data.
- mawadev
I'm confused, so google made websites indirectly unusable with all the advertisement incentives and then the AI summary came that usually just summarizes some reddit posts and now they subtly and indirectly block universities from using their entire search engine because unis block the AI part of search? What incentive does google even have on presenting the ai summary?
Does anyone even understand the world currently? Its so absurd to me, why does it exist to begin with and why is this drama appearing?
- lukeschlather
I think we've reached a point where reading the AI summary (which I think is Gemini Flash Lite) is probably going to be more reliable than actually reading the top 10 search results. The top 10 search results were often blogspam even in a pre-AI world. I feel like either you trust Google to retrieve information or you don't (and Gemini has problems but so does Google Search, and are you really sure the latter is worse than the former?)
It has been over a decade since Google Search was anything but a machine-learning powered word association engine. I miss old Google Search but it's dead and I trust Gemini more than what Search has turned into.
- fitblipper
Tangentially related:
Google is willing to sacrifice children to push engagement. In family link they refuse to let me restrict the Google app. In what world do I want my 1st or 2nd grader opening the Google app and reading the news about murder, rape, and all the other horrendous things that are common in the Google apps news summary? Give us parents actual control in androids parental control app!
- djoldman
As usual, the truth is a little less clickbaity. It's just opt-in:
https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/educatio...
> We believe schools should have control over AI in their classrooms and in providing administrators with controls to help them manage their approach. After listening to schools, teachers, leading researchers, and policymakers, we are now updating our approach to controls for Gemini, Gemini Notebook, Gemini in Classroom, and Google Search. Access to these products will be entirely off for K-12 student accounts until school administrators explicitly turn them on.
- josh_p
I know they’re not marketing to schools yet, but kagi.com is available for libraries. I expect they’ll try to break into the school market eventually.
It’s a good time to break free from Google and try something else. I’ve been using kagi for a couple years and I haven’t looked back.
Not a shill.. I just like the service.
- Shorel
So, win-win and more traffic for Duck Duck Go?
That's how I read it nowadays, as Google search results are in a quality going down trend.
- wffurr
Major self-own. Hope this turns into a big boost for DDG and Kagi for Edu.
- crazygringo
This makes perfect sense. How is it even news?
Google Search uses lots of AI. Google is now allowing schools to turn off all AI entirely. That, obviously turns off Google Search. This is the feature working as intended.
It seems like school administrators will get to control which products get AI, individually. Which is what they've been asking for:
> After listening to schools, teachers, leading researchers, and policymakers, we are now updating our approach to controls for Gemini, Gemini Notebook, Gemini in Classroom, and Google Search. Access to these products will be entirely off for K-12 student accounts until school administrators explicitly turn them on.
Am I missing something here...? This announcement seems to be 100% good, but people are writing like it's 100% bad.
- ApolloFortyNine
>The consumer version of Guided Learning is already available within Gemini, and can enable cheating. In a reporter’s test, it produced a detailed essay in response to an Advanced Placement history prompt.
I don't envy trying to stop cheating in an AI world, but when a student gets to the AP History level, if they want to cheat they'll know how to do it, with or without using a Google product with their school login.
Best you can do is guide them down the "correct" path, which itself is going to be harder and harder with AI generated content out in the wild.